the. Ewing wished it had been the father. He had much of
good to tell the little man now.

Neither Mrs. Laithe nor Teevan spoke of Ewing after their greeting,
though each was so busy in thought of him that their talk was scant and
aimless for the first five minutes. Alden Teevan was brought back to her
at length by noticing the drawn, tired look of her face, for the sparkle
that Ewing had left there was gone.

"Nell, you look done up. I'm no alarmist, but you really need to be
frightened. What is it you're doing to take you down so--the same old
round? Is it a visiting guild now, or the Comforters of the Worthy Poor,
or just amateur nursing of sin, sickness, and death?"

She smiled wanly.

"The same old round, Alden. I can't keep away from it when I am here. I
know it so well. No one could keep away who knew it well."

"Futile, futile, futile! Are you equal to a revolution?"

"More's the pity, no. And I've no time for one. I've a whole family of
consumptives on my hands at this moment, father, mother, two girls and a
boy."

"And you wear yourself out over a few minor effects like that, instead
of going at the cause. You may save one or two of those people--none of
them of any value, individually; while the same energy put to the root
of the evil might save thousands--and they _are_ of value in the mass.
Think me calloused if you like, but that's mere common sense economy of
effort. You and I--our class--make them live as they do, and we grow
maudlin over it and take them a little soup and many tracts. But we
won't remit our tithes. We keep them down to breed more misery for the
exercise of our little philanthropic fads. I'm radical, you see."

She turned her head away with a hand wave that seemed to dismiss an
argument familiar and outworn.

"I know--but I must do what I can."

He faced her with a sudden insistent energy.

"Come away, Nell--come farther off. You're too close to the ugly things
now--you lose the perspective. Come away--and come with me, won't you,
Nell? Come away and live. I must say it--I must ask it--come!"

He read the inexorable in the lift of her head.

"I understand, Alden--and I thank you--but no." She glanced across at
him and continued more lightly, "I wasn't meant to go far off--to go
above timber line, as Mr. Ewing would say."

He felt bitterness rising in him at her mention of the name, but he
laughed it away.

"You'll always do the hardest thing, Nell. I know that. But I--w