hat one once was.

"The loss of honour is, as you say, a pitiful thing; yet, I think
that when that happens, love and compassion were never more truly
needed.

"Honour, as I understand it, is not to take advantage of others or
of one's better self. This is a young girl's definition. I cannot
see--if one has yielded once to temptation, and truly repents--why
honour cannot be regained.

"The honour of men and nations that seems to require arrogance,
aggression, violence for its defence, I do not understand. How can
the misdeeds of others impair one's true honour? How can punishment
for such misdeeds restore it? No; it lies within one, quite
intangible save by one's self.

"Why should I not know, dear?--I who have lost my own and found it,
have held it desperately for a while, then lost it, then regained
it, holding it again as I do now--alas!--against no other enemy than
I who write this record for your eyes!

"Dear, I know of nothing lost which may not be regained, except
life. I know of nothing which cannot be rendered tolerable through
loyalty.

"That material happiness which means so much to some, means now so
very little to me, perhaps because I have never lacked it.

"Yet I know that, once mistress of myself, nothing else could matter
unless your love failed."

Again she wrote him toward the end of November:

"Why will you not let me help you, dear? My fortune is practically
intact so far, except that, of course, I met those obligations which
Scott could not meet. Poor Scott!

"You know it's rather bewildering to me where millions go to. I
don't quite comprehend how they can so utterly vanish in such a
short time, even in such a frightful fiasco as the Cascade
Development Company.

"So many people have been here--Mr. Landon and Mr. Gayfield, Mr.
Stainer of Elting & Stainer, that dreadful creature Klawber, a very
horrid man named Amos Flack--and dear, grim, pig-headed Mr.
Tappan--old Remsen Tappan of all men!

"He practically kicked out Mr. Flack and the creature Klawber, who
had been trying to frighten Scott and me and even our lawyers.

"And think, Duane! He never uttered one sarcasm, one reproach for
Scott's foolishness; he sat grim and rusty as the iron that he once
dealt in, listening to what Scott had to tell him, never opening
that crag