ue.

"Words, words, words," he groaned at last. "Your life is made of
words. Words are your coin. What do you know?

"Do you think that words can go down into my soul to find the man that
was once there? Do you think that words can call him up? When did
words ever mean anything to a man's real heart! You come here with
your question. It's made of words.

"When did men ever do anything for _words_? Honour is a word. Truth is
a word. Bravery is a word. Loyalty is a word. Hero is a word. Do you
think men do things for words? No! What do you know? What _could_ you
know?

"Men do things and you call them by words. But do they do them for the
words? No!

"They do them-- Because _some woman lives, or once lived!_ What do
_you_ know?

"Go out there. Stay there." He pointed. "I've got to think."

He fell brokenly into his chair and lay against his desk. The Bishop
rose and walked from the room.

When he heard the door close, the man got up and going to the door
barred it.

He came back and sat awhile, his head leaning heavily upon his propped
hands.

He opened a drawer of his desk and looked at a smooth, glinting black
and steel thing that lay there. Then he shut the drawer with a bang
that went out to the Bishop listening in the outer office. It was a
sinister, suggestive noise, and for an instant it chilled that good
man's heart. But his ears were sharp and true and he knew immediately
that he had been mistaken.

Stanton pulled out another drawer, unlocked a smaller compartment
within it, and from the latter took a small gold-framed picture. He
set it up on the desk between his hands and looked long at it,
questioning the face in the frame with a tender, diffident expression
of a wonder that never ceased, of a longing never to be stilled.

The face that looked out of the picture was one of a quiet,
translucent beauty. At first glance the face had none of the striking
features that men associate with great beauty. But behind the eyes
there seemed to glow, and to grow gradually, and softly stronger, a
light, as though diffused within an alabaster vase, that slowly
radiated from the whole countenance an impression of indescribable,
gentle loveliness.

Clifford Stanton had often wondered what was that light from within.
He wondered now, and questioned. Never before had that light seemed
so wonderful and so real. Now there came to him an answer. An answer
that shook him, for it was the last answer he would have e