hile!"

He did not once look up, and reached silence, at the end of what he had
to say, with his eyes still awkwardly regarding his feet. She did not
speak, but a soft rustling of her garments let him know that she had
gone back to her chair again. The house was still; the shabby old room
was so quiet that the sound of a creaking in the wall seemed sharp and
loud.

And yet, when Mary spoke at last, her voice was barely audible. "If you
think it has been--happy--to be friends with me--you'd want to--to make
it last."

"Yes," said Bibbs, as faintly.

"You'd want to go on being my friend as long as we live, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," he gulped.

"But you make that kind of speech to me because you think it's over."

He tried to evade her. "Oh, a day-laborer can't come in his overalls--"

"No," she interrupted, with a sudden sharpness. "You said what you did
because you think the shop's going to kill you."

"No, no!"

"Yes, you do think that!" She rose to her feet again and came and stood
before him. "Or you think it's going to send you back to the sanitarium.
Don't deny it, Bibbs. There! See how easily I call you that! You see I'm
a friend, or I couldn't do it. Well, if you meant what you said--and you
did mean it, I know it!--you're not going to go back to the sanitarium.
The shop sha'n't hurt you. It sha'n't!"

And now Bibbs looked up. She stood before him, straight and tall,
splendid in generous strength, her eyes shining and wet.

"If I mean THAT much to you," she cried, "they can't harm you! Go
back to the shop--but come to me when your day's work is done. Let the
machines crash their sixty-eight times a minute, but remember each crash
that deafens you is that much nearer the evening and me!"

He stumbled to his feet. "You say--" he gasped.

"Every evening, dear Bibbs!"

He could only stare, bewildered.

"EVERY evening. I want you. They sha'n't hurt you again!" And she held
out her hand to him; it was strong and warm in his tremulous clasp. "If
I could, I'd go and feed the strips of zinc to the machine with you,"
she said. "But all day long I'll send my thoughts to you. You must keep
remembering that your friend stands beside you. And when the work is
done--won't the night make up for the day?"

Light seemed to glow from her; he was blinded by that radiance
of kindness. But all he could say was, huskily, "To think you're
there--with me--standing beside the old zinc-eater--"

And they laughed and look