is married is bound to life by too many ties. Even his affection for
his wife is a tie. And then there is her affection for the world, its
riches, its praise, its honours.----"

"Well, well, we'll say no more. After all, it's better than running wild,
and that's what most young men seem to be doing nowadays. But then your
long education abroad--and your poor father left to look after himself!
Good-day to you. Come and see me now and then. How like your mother you
are sometimes! Good-day!"

When the door of the cabinet room closed on John Storm the Prime Minister
thought, "Poor boy, he's laying up for himself a big heartache one of
these fine days!"

And John Storm, going down the street with uncertain step, said to
himself: "How strange he should talk like that! But, thank God, he didn't
produce a flicker in me. I died to all that a year ago."

Then he lifted his head and his footstep lightened, and deep in some
secret place the thought came proudly, "She shall see that to renounce
the world is to possess the world--that a man may be poor and have all
the kingdom of the world at his feet."

He went back by the Underground from Westminster Bridge. It was midday,
and the train was crowded. His spirits were high and he talked with every
one near him. Getting out at Victoria, he came upon his vicar on the
platform and saluted him rather demonstratively. The canon responded with
some restraint and then stepped into a first-class carriage.

On turning into Eaton Place he came upon a group of people standing
around something that lay on the pavement. It was an old woman, a
tattered, bedraggled creature with a pinched and pallid face. "Is it an
accident?" a gentleman was saying, and somebody answered, "No, sir, she's
gorn off in a faint." "Why doesn't some one take her to the hospital?"
said the gentleman, and then, like the Levite, he passed by on the other
side. The butcher's cart drew up at the curb, and the butcher jumped
down, saying, "There never _is_ no p'lice about when they're wanted for
anythink."

"But they aren't wanted here, friend," said somebody from the outside. It
was John Storm, and he was pushing his way through the crowd.

"Will somebody knock at that door, please?" He lifted the old thing in
his arms and carried her toward the canon's house. The footman looked
aghast. "Let me know when the canon returns," said John, and then marched
up the carpeted stairs to his rooms.

An hour afterward the old