whole commandment; she had, while
at the mercy of her own temperament, fought her way through all, with a
weeping heart and laughing lips. Had she not longed for a little home with
a great love, and a strong, true man? Ah, it had been lonely, bitterly
lonely! Yet she had remained true to the scoundrel, from whom she could
not free herself without putting him in the grasp of the law to atone for
his crime. She was punished for his crimes; she was denied the exercise of
her womanhood in order to shield him. Still she remembered that once she
had loved him, those years ago, when he first won her heart from those so
much better than he, who loved her so much more honestly; and this memory
had helped her in a way. She had tried to be true to it, that dead, lost
thing, of which this man who came once a year to see her, and now, lying
with his life at stake in the hospital, was the repellent ghost.

"Ah, you will not see him die?" she urged.

"It seems to move you greatly what happens to this man," he said, his
determined dark eyes searching hers, for she baffled him. If she could
feel so much for a "casual," why not a little more feeling for him?
Suddenly, as he drew her eyes to him again, there came the conviction that
they were full of feeling for him. They were sending a message, an
appealing, passionate message, which told him more than he had ever heard
from her or seen in her face before. Yes, she was his! Without a word
spoken she had told him so. What, then, held her back? But women were a
race by themselves, and he knew that he must wait till she chose to have
him know what she had unintentionally conveyed but now.

"Yes, I am moved," she continued, slowly. "Who can tell what this man
might do with his life if it is saved! Don't you think of that? It isn't
the importance of a life that's at stake; it's the importance of living;
and we do not live alone, do we?"

His mind was made up. "I will not, cannot promise anything till I have
seen him. But I will go and see him, and I'll send you word later what I
can do or not do. Will that satisfy you? If I cannot do it, I will come to
say good-bye."

Her face was set with suppressed feeling. She held out her hand to him
impulsively, and was about to speak, but suddenly caught the hand away
again from his thrilling grasp and, turning hurriedly, left the room. In
the hall she met Father Bourassa.

"Go with him to the hospital," she whispered, and disappeared through the