gh more than a mere boy's."

"Thank you."

"Don't laugh. It's too serious."

"That's just my point. It IS serious. Here is a man who is a helpless
burden. He may be restored to reason and usefulness--"

"He was so very useful before," interjected Anne witheringly.

"He may be given a chance to make good and redeem the past. His wife
doesn't know this. I do. It is therefore my duty to tell her that
there is such a possibility. That, boiled down, is my decision."

"Don't say 'decision' yet, Gilbert. Consult somebody else. Ask
Captain Jim what he thinks about it."

"Very well. But I'll not promise to abide by his opinion, Anne.

"This is something a man must decide for himself. My conscience would
never be easy if I kept silent on the subject."

"Oh, your conscience!" moaned Anne. "I suppose that Uncle Dave has a
conscience too, hasn't he?"

"Yes. But I am not the keeper of his conscience. Come, Anne, if this
affair did not concern Leslie--if it were a purely abstract case, you
would agree with me,--you know you would."

"I wouldn't," vowed Anne, trying to believe it herself. "Oh, you can
argue all night, Gilbert, but you won't convince me. Just you ask Miss
Cornelia what she thinks of it."

"You're driven to the last ditch, Anne, when you bring up Miss Cornelia
as a reinforcement. She will say, 'Just like a man,' and rage
furiously. No matter. This is no affair for Miss Cornelia to settle.
Leslie alone must decide it."

"You know very well how she will decide it," said Anne, almost in
tears. "She has ideals of duty, too. I don't see how you can take
such a responsibility on your shoulders. _I_ couldn't."

"'Because right is right to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence,'"

quoted Gilbert.

"Oh, you think a couplet of poetry a convincing argument!" scoffed
Anne. "That is so like a man."

And then she laughed in spite of herself. It sounded so like an echo
of Miss Cornelia.

"Well, if you won't accept Tennyson as an authority, perhaps you will
believe the words of a Greater than he," said Gilbert seriously. "'Ye
shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.' I believe
that, Anne, with all my heart. It's the greatest and grandest verse in
the Bible--or in any literature--and the TRUEST, if there are
comparative degrees of trueness. And it's the first duty of a man to
tell the truth, as he sees it and believes it."

"In this case the truth