afraid it
won't do."

"Oh, mercy, Don! Why _not_?"

"How should I explain its presence, opposite my red-cushioned rocker?
Give it a good look, Sue, that chair, and tell me honestly if I can
afford to introduce such an incongruous note into my plain bachelor house
up there."

She surveyed the chair in question, a luxurious and costly type standing
for the last word in masculine comfort and taste. It was one which had
been given to Brown by Webb Atchison, and had long been a favourite.

"Oh, I don't know," she said hopelessly, shaking her head. "I can't
decide for any monk what he shall take into his cell."

Brown flushed, a peculiar dull red creeping up under his dark skin. He
smothered the retort on his lips, however, and when he did speak it was
with entire control, though there was, nevertheless, an uncompromising
quality in his inflection which for the moment silenced his sister as if
he had laid his hand upon her mouth.

"Understand me, once for all, Sue--if you can. I am going into no
monastery. To such a man as I naturally am, I am going out of what has
been a sheltered life into one in the open. You think of me as retiring
from the world. Instead of that, I am just getting into the fight. And to
fight well--I must go stripped."

She shook her head again and walked over to the window, struggling with
very real emotion. At once he was beside her, and his arm was about her
shoulders. He spoke very gently now.

"Don't take it so hard, dear girl. I'm not going to be so far away that I
can never come back. You will see me from time to time. I couldn't get on
without my one sister--with father and mother gone, and the brothers at
the other side of the world. Come, cheer up, and help me decide what
disposal to make of my stuff. Will you take the most of it?"

She turned about, presently, dried her eyes determinedly, and surveyed
the room. It was a beautiful room, the sombre hues of its book-lined
walls relieved by the rich and mellow tones of its rugs and draperies,
the distinguished furnishings of the writing-table, and the subdued gleam
of a wonderful reading-lamp of wrought copper which had been given to
Brown by Sue herself.

"If you will let me," she said, "I'll give up one room to your things and
put all these into it. Aren't you even going to take your books?"

"I must--a couple of hundred, at least. I can't give up such old friends
as these."

"A couple of hundred--out of a couple of thousand!"