cuse for his journey; for the rest, no one suspected
nor--so thought Truedale--was any one ever to know. That part of his
life-story was done with; it had been interpreted bunglingly and
ignorantly to be sure, but the lesson, learned by failure, had sunk deep
in his heart.

He arranged his private work in the little room under the eaves. He
intended, if time were ever his again, to begin where he had left off
when broken health interrupted.

In the extension room over William Truedale's bedchamber Lynda carried
on her designing and her study; her office, uptown, was reserved for
interviews and outside business. Her home workshop had the feminine
touch that the other lacked. There were her tea table by the hearth,
work bags of dainty silk, and flowers in glass vases. The dog and the
cats were welcome in the pleasant room and sedately slept or rolled
about while the mistress worked.

But Truedale, while much in the old home, still kept his five-room
flat. He bought a good, serviceable dog that preferred a bachelor life
to any other and throve upon long evening strolls and erratic feeding.
There were plants growing in the windows--and these Conning looked after
with conscientious care.

When the first suffering and sense of abasement passed, Truedale
discovered that life in his little apartment was not only possible, but
also his salvation. All the spiritual essence left in him survived best
in those rooms. As time went by and Nella-Rose as an actuality receded,
her memory remained unembittered. Truedale never cast blame upon her,
though sometimes he tried to view her from the outsider's position. No;
always she eluded the material estimate.

"Not more than half real," so White had portrayed her, and as such she
gradually became to Truedale.

He plunged into business, as many a man had before him, to fill the gaps
in his life; and he found, as others had, that the taste of power--the
discovery that he could meet and fulfil the demands made upon
him--carried him out of the depths and eventually secured a place for
him in the world of men that he valued and strove to prove himself
worthy of. He wisely went slowly and took the advice of such men as
McPherson and his uncle's old lawyer. He grew in time to enjoy the
position of trust as his duties multiplied, and he often wondered how
he could ever have despised the common lot of his fellows. He
deliberately, and from choice, set his personal tastes aside--time
enough f