oked her father's hand once, and then let it go. There was a
long silence. Holmes glanced out, and saw the sun was down.

"Lois," he said, "I want you to wish me a happy Christmas, as people
do."

Holmes had a curious vein of superstition: he knew no lips so pure as
this girl's, and he wanted them to wish him good-luck that night. She
did it, looking up laughing and growing red: riddles of life did not
trouble her childish fancy long. And so he left her, with a dull
feeling, as I said before, that it was good to say a prayer before the
battle came on. For men who believed in prayers: for him, it was the
same thing to make one day for Lois happier.

CHAPTER X.

It was later than Holmes thought: a gray, cold evening. The streets in
that suburb were lonely: he went down them, the new-fallen snow dulling
his step. It had covered the peaked roofs of the houses too, and they
stood in listening rows, white and still. Here and there a pale
flicker from the gas-lamps struggled with the ashy twilight. He met no
one: people had gone home early on Christmas eve. He had no home to go
to: pah! there were plenty of hotels, he remembered, smiling grimly.
It was bitter cold: he buttoned up his coat tightly, as he walked
slowly along as if waiting for some one,--wondering dully if the gray
air were any colder or stiller than the heart hardly beating under the
coat. Well, men had conquered Fate, conquered life and love, before
now. It grew darker: he was pacing now slowly in the shadow of a long
low wall surrounding the grounds of some building. When he came near
the gate, he would stop and listen: he could have heard a sparrow on
the snow, it was so still. After a while he did hear footsteps,
crunching the snow heavily; the gate clicked as they came out: it was
Knowles, and the clergyman whom Dr. Cox did not like; Vandyke was his
name.

"Don't bolt the gate," said Knowles; "Miss Howth will be out presently."

They sat down on a pile of lumber near by, waiting, apparently. Holmes
went up and joined them, standing in the shadow of the lumber, talking
to Vandyke. He did not meet him, perhaps, once in six months; but he
believed in the man, thoroughly.

"I've just helped Knowles build a Christmas-tree in yonder,--the House
of Refuge: you know. He could not tell an oak from an arbor-vitae, I
believe."

Knowles was in no mood for quizzing.

"There are other things I don't know," he said, gloomily, recurring to
so