r some intolerable memory--who has
listened in the dead of night to his smothered but heart-breaking
groans, can know either his suffering or the one joy which palliates it.
If I could tell you his story--but that would be treason to one whose
rights I am bound to reverence. You will respect my silence, but you
must also take my word that he needs and has a right to all the pleasure
and all the hope my love can give him. I cannot be with him much; my
work forbids, but the little time I have is his, except on rare
occasions like this, and he knows it and is satisfied. Were I
married----. But you will wait, Philip. It may not be long--he grows
weaker every day. Besides, you are not ready yet yourself. You are doing
wonderfully well, but a year's freedom will help you materially, as it
will me. Every day is adding to our store; in a year we may be almost
independent."

"Grace, you have misunderstood me. I said that I was no good without
you, that I needed your presence to make a man of me, but I did not mean
that you were to share my fortunes now. I would not ask that. I would be
a fool or worse, for, Grace, I'm not doing so well as you think. While I
knew that my present employment was for a specified time, I had hopes of
continuing on. But this cannot be. That's what I have to tell you
to-night. It looks as if our marriage would have to be postponed
indefinitely instead of hastened. And I can't bear it. You don't know
what you are to me, or what this disappointment is. I expected to be
raised, not dismissed, and if I had had----"

[Illustration: "_Grace, you have misunderstood me_"]

"What?"

The word came very softly, and with rare tenderness. It made him turn
and look at her sweet, upturned face, with its resources of strength and
shy, unfathomable smile. "What?" she asked again, with a closer pressure
of her hand. "You must finish all your sentences with _me_."

"I'm ashamed." He uttered it breathlessly. "What am I, to say, 'If I had
three thousand dollars the Stickney Company would keep me?' I have
barely three hundred and those are dedicated to you."

CHAPTER VII

"_I'm sure that I can get them for you_"

"If you had _three thousand_!" She repeated it in surprise and yet with
an indescribable air, which to one versed in human nature would have
caught the attention and aroused strange inner inquiries. "Does the
Stickney Company want money so badly as that?"

"That's not it. They have plainly told m