Harlson said that he was very much obliged for my toleration, or would
be until he got me alone, and Miss Cornish showed a proper spirit, and
so I left them. But I had no evidence that she believed what I had
said.

As we walked home together in the early morning, Harlson told me more
of the young lady. She was living with an aunt, he said, and was,
otherwise, alone in the world. She had but a little income, barely
enough to live on, but she had courage unlimited, and tact, and was not
insignificant as a social factor. She had the sturdiness of her
ancestry, in which the name of Jean ran.

"I like it," Harlson said; "it fits her--'Jean Cornish'--little brown
'Jean Cornish'--little leopardess, little, wise, good woman."

I told him that he was mixing his similes, and that in a broad,
comprehensive way he had become a fool.

"I tell you I'm in love with her already," he blurted out, "and
somehow, some day, I will have her, and wear her and care for her!"

"But, my dear boy, don't be insane. There is the problem we were
discussing last night. Have you a solution of it? And first catch
your hare. Have you caught your pretty hare yet? I'll admit it's
possible. Women are fools over such fellows as you when they should be
adhesive to good, plodding members of society, like the friend who is
now advising you, but Miss Cornish is not a fool, you see, and I don't
think you deserve her."

"For that matter, neither do I," he answered; "but I will deserve her
yet. I must do more of many things, and cease to do many things. I
believe I comprehend better now than I ever did the words in the
service, 'We have done those things and left undone,' and all that.
But you'll see a difference. I'll make her proud of me. That's the
right way to become clean, isn't it, old man?"

I said I thought it a wholesome and commendable resolution, on general
principles, and, of course, the idol would gradually disintegrate. All
idols were of clay. But it didn't matter about the idol, so long as
the effect was produced. He might count on me any time for good
advice. He only glared at me, and called me hard names, and we dropped
in at the club and finished our cigars, and separated.

CHAPTER XIX.

PURGATORY.

And Grant Harlson made love to Jean Cornish and won her heart.

But all the time, unconsciously, he was a man of false pretensions, one
dishonorable and unworthy of her. His friends knew of his marriage and
its