mped two words into the pause, as if pumping air
into a vacuum. "I oughtn't to have said all that. It was rude."

"But true? You think it's true?"

"Yes."

"You have been working here in my father's store for months, and you
say I could do more good by righting the wrongs here than anywhere
else in the world. That sounds pretty serious."

"It is serious. Whether I ought to have spoken or not."

_"I_ tell you, you ought to have spoken. It was--brave of you. That's
the way I always think of you, Miss Child, being brave--whatever
happens. And laughing."

"I don't laugh now."

"Not at other people's troubles--I know. But you would at your own."

"I'm not thinking of my own. To-day of all days!"

He wondered what she meant. His mind flashed swiftly back to last
night and all that had happened. He could have kissed the hem of her
black dress to see her here, safe and vital enough to fling reproaches
at him for his sins--of omission. Yet he must stand coldly discussing
grievances. No, "coldly" was not the word. No word could have been
less appropriate to the boiling emotions under Peter Rolls's grave,
composed manner.

He let the baffling sentence go--a sentence which framed thoughts of
Sadie Kirk.

"I should like to hear from you the specific wrongs you want righted,"
he said. "I know a girl of your sort wouldn't speak vaguely. You _do_
mean something specific."

"Yes--I do."

"Then tell me--now."

"You came to buy a cloak for your mother."

"I didn't come for that, and you know it. I came for you. But you put
a shield between us to keep me off. When you have emptied your heart
of some of these grievances that are making it hot--against me, maybe
you won't have to put me at the same distance. Maybe you'll let me be
your friend again, if I can deserve it."

"I don't want to talk or think of ourselves at all!" she broke out.

"I don't ask you to. All that--and my mother's cloak, too--you needn't
be getting down that box!--can wait. If you won't be my friend, anyhow
show me how to help your friends."

"Oh, if you would do that!" Win cried.

"I will. Give me the chance."

Despite his injunction, she had taken from its neat oak shelf a box of
summer wraps and placed it on the counter behind which she stood. Now,
not knowing what she did, she lifted the cardboard cover and seemed to
peep in at the folds of chiffon and silk.

Peter looked not at the box, but at her pitiful, reddened hands on the
lid. The