e suddenly
broke the silence:

"I had a letter from Lawson Barr yesterday."

Dosia's heart gave a leap that choked her. It was the first time that
anybody had spoken his name since he left. She had prayed for him
every night--how she had prayed! as for one gone forever from any
other reach than that of the spirit. At this heart-leap ... fear was
in it--fear of any news she might hear of him; fear of the slighting
tone of the person who told it, which she would be powerless to
resent; fear of awakening in herself the echo of that struggle of the
past.

"He's at the mines, isn't he?" she questioned, in that tone which she
had always striven to make coolly natural when she spoke of him.

"Yes; but I don't believe he's working there yet. He seems to be
mostly engaged in playing at the dance-hall for the miners. Sounds
like him, doesn't it?"

"Yes," assented Dosia, looking straight off into the distance.

"I call it hard luck for Barr to be sent out there," pursued Mr.
Sutton. "It's the worst kind of a life for him. He's an awfully clever
fellow; he could do anything, if he wanted to. I don't know any man I
admire more, in certain ways, than I do Barr."

Sutton spoke with evident sincerity. Lawson's clever brilliancy, his
social ease and versatility and musical talent, were all what he
himself had longed unspeakably to possess. Besides, there was a deeper
bond. "I've known him ever since he was a curly-headed boy, long
before he came to this place," he continued.

"Oh, did you?" cried Dosia, suddenly heart-warm. With a flash, some
words of Mrs. Leverich's returned to her--"Mr. Sutton brought Lawson
home last night." So that was why! Her voice was tremulous as she went
on: "It is very unusual to hear any one speak as you do of Mr. Barr.
Everybody here seems to look down on--to despise him."

"Oh, that sort of talk makes me sick," said George, with an unexpected
crude energy. His good-natured face took on a sneering, contemptuous
expression. "Men talking about him who----" He looked down sidewise at
Dosia and closed his lips tightly. No man was more respectable than
he,--respectability might be said to be his cult,--yet he lived in
daily, matter-of-fact touch with a world of men wherein "ladies" were
a thing apart. No man was ever kept from any sort of confidence by the
fact of George Sutton's presence. His feeling for Barr and toleration
of his shortcomings were partly due to the fact that George himself
had also