at your disposal--to share with us--but that room is yours, always."

Truedale stood before Lynda and put out his hands in quite the old way.
His eyes were dim and he said hoarsely: "That's about the greatest thing
you've done yet, Lyn. Thank you. Good-night."

At the door he hesitated--he felt he must speak, but to bring his own
affairs into the tense and new conditions surrounding him seemed
impossible. To-morrow he would explain everything. It was this slowness
in reaching a decision that most defeated Truedale's best interest.
While he deplored it--he seemed incapable of overcoming it.

Alone in the little room, later, he let himself go. Burying his tired
head upon his folded arms he gave himself up to waves of recollection
that threatened to engulf him. Everything was as it always had been--a
glance proved that. When he had parted from his uncle he had taken only
such articles as pertained to his maturer years. The pictures on the
walls--the few shabby books that had drifted into his lonely and
misunderstood childhood--remained. There was the locked box containing,
Conning knew full well, the pitiful but sacred attempts at
self-expression. The key was gone, but he recollected every scrap of
paper which lay hidden in the old, dented tin box. Presently he went to
the dormer window and opened it wide. Leaning out he tried to find his
way back to Pine Cone--to the future that was to be free of all these
cramping memories and hurting restrictions--but the trail was too
cluttered; he was lost utterly!

"It is because they do not know," he thought. "After to-morrow it will
be all right."

Then he reflected that the three thousand dollars Lynda had mentioned
would clear every obstacle from his path and Nella-Rose's. He no longer
need struggle--he could give his time and care to her and his work. He
did not consider the rest of his uncle's estate, it did not matter.
Lynda was provided for and so was he. And then, for the first time in
many days, Truedale speculated upon bringing Nella-Rose away from her
hills. He found himself rather insisting upon it, until he brought
himself to terms by remembering her as he had seen her last--clinging to
her own, vehemently, passionately.

"No, I've made my choice," he finally exclaimed; "the coming back
unsettled me for the moment but her people shall be my people."

Below stairs Lynda was humming softly an old tune--"The Song of
To-morrow," it was called. It caught and held True