two men for a little as they
walked briskly along, then Coolidge said reluctantly: "Of course I
should have a heart of stone if I were not touched by that scene--as you
knew I would be."

"Yes, I knew," said Burns simply; and Coolidge saw him lift his hand and
dash away a tear. "It gets me, twice a day regularly, just as if I
hadn't seen it before. And when I go back and look at the woman I love I
say to myself that I'll never let anything but the last enemy come
between us if I have to crawl on my knees before her."

Suddenly Coolidge's throat contracted. His resentment against his friend
was gone. Surely it was a wise physician who had given him that
heartbreaking little scene to remember when he should be tempted to
harden his heart against the woman he had chosen.

"Red," he said bye and bye, when the two were alone together for a few
minutes again in the consulting room before he should leave for his
train, "is that all the prescription you're going to give me--a trip to
California? Suppose I'm not successful?"

Red Pepper Burns smiled, a curious little smile. "You've forgotten what
I told you about the way my old man and woman made a home together,' and
worked at their market gardening together, and read and studied
together--did everything from first to last _together_. That's the whole
force of the illustration, to my mind, Cooly. It's the standing shoulder
to shoulder to face life that does the thing. Whatever plan you make for
your after life, when you bring Alicia back with you--as you will; I
know it--make it a plan which means partnership--if you have to build a
cottage down on the edge of your estate and live alone there together.
Alone till the children come to keep you company," he added with a
sudden flashing smile.

Coolidge looked at him and shook his head. His face dropped back into
melancholy. He opened his lips and closed them again. Red Pepper Burns
opened his own lips--and closed them again. When he did speak it was to
say, more gently than he had yet spoken:

"Old fellow, life isn't in ruins before you. Make up your mind to that.
You'll sleep again, and laugh again--and cry again, too,--because life
is like that, and you wouldn't want it any other way."

It was time for Coolidge to go, and the two men went in to permit the
guest to take leave of Mrs. Burns. When they left the house Coolidge
told his friend briefly what he thought of his friend's wife, and Burns
smiled in the darkness as