zales, with some fortitude.' So--at
Seward--I remembered."

Her voice, while she said this, almost failed, but every word reached
Tisdale. He felt, without seeing, the something that was appeal yet not
appeal, that keyed her whole body and shone like a changing light and
shade in her face. "I told myself I would not be sacrificed, effaced," she
went on. "It was my individuality against Fate. Since little Silva was
dead, my life was my own to shape as I might. I did not hear from David
for a long time; he wrote less and less frequently, more briefly every
year. He never spoke of the baby, and I believed he must have heard
through some friend in California of Silva's death. Nothing was left to
tell. He never spoke of his home-coming, and I did not; I dreaded it too
much. Whenever the last steamers of the season were due, I nerved myself
to look the passenger lists over; and when his name was missing, it was a
reprieve. Neither my father nor my grandfather had believed in divorce; in
their eyes it was disgrace. It seemed right, for Silva's sake, out of the
rich placers David continued to find, he should contribute to my support.
So--I lived my life--the best I was able. I had many interests, and always
one morning of each week I spent among the children at the hospital where
I had endowed the Silva Weatherbee bed."

She paused so long that Tisdale turned. She seemed very tired. The patient
lines, fine as a thread, deepened perceptibly at the corners of her mouth.
He hurried to save her further explanation. "Foster told me," he said. "It
was a beautiful memorial. Sometime I should like to go there with you. I
know you met the first expense of that endowment with a loan from Miss
Morganstein, which of course you expected to cancel soon, when you had
found David at Seward. I understand how, when the note came into her
brother's hands, your only chance to meet it at once was through a sale of
this land. And I have thought since I knew this, that evening aboard the
_Aquila_, when you risked Don Silva's ruby, it was to make the yearly
payment at the hospital."

"Yes, it was. But the option money from Mr. Banks made it possible to meet
all my debts. I did not know they were only assumed--by you. Though,
looking back, I wonder I failed to see the truth."

With this she turned and took up the photograph which she had laid on the
secretary, and while her glance rested on the picture, Tisdale's regarded
her face. "So," he said the