can't live a single day
of it over again. There are some things I simply must do as I pass.
They can't wait, and the thing that has begun to strangle me is this
modern craze for money, money, money, at all hazards, by fair or foul
means! In every walk of life I find this cancer eating the heart out of
men. I must fight it! I must! Good food, decent clothes, a home, pure
air, a great love--these are all any human being needs! No human being
should have less. I will not strike down my fellow man to get more for
myself while one human being on this earth wants as much."

Unconsciously the young man's hand was extended and grasped the
doctor's.

"You'll never know," Stuart said with deep emotion, "how much I owe to
you in my own life. You have always been an inspiration to me."

The patient gray eyes smiled.

"I'm glad to hear that to-night, my boy. For strange as it may seem to
you, I've been whistling to keep up my courage. I'm going to make this
fight for principle because I know I'm right, and yet somehow when I
look into the face of my baby I'm a coward. I'm going to make this
fight and I've a sickening foreboding of failure. But after all, can a
man fail who is right?"

"I don't believe it!" was the ringing answer which leaped to Stuart's
lips. "I've had to face a crisis like this recently. I was beginning to
hesitate and think of a compromise. You've helped me."

"Good luck, my boy," was the cheery answer. "I was a poor soldier
to-night myself until the little weasel told me an obvious lie and I
took courage."

"Funny if Bivens should do anything obvious."

"Wasn't it? He pretended to have come in a mood of generosity--his
offer of settlement inspired by love."

"The devil must have laughed."

"So did I--especially when he told me that he was engaged to be
married."

"Engaged--to--be--married?" Stuart made a supreme effort to appear
indifferent--"to whom?"

"To Miss Nan Primrose, a young lady I haven't the honour of knowing,
and he had the lying audacity to say that he came at her suggestion."

Stuart tried to speak and his tongue refused to move.

"I was frank enough to inform him that he was a liar. For which, of
course, I had to apologize. Well, you've helped me to-night, boy, more
than I can tell you. It helps an old man to look into the eyes of youth
and renew his faith. Good-night!"

The doctor began to lower the lights, and Stuart said mechanically:

"Good-night!"

In a stupor of blind