im, too, for his neglect of her--for his fear to take
his happiness on any terms. But all she had said was, "You shouldn't
have watched me like that ... it wasn't fair."

He rose, finally, shaking himself into the world of reality again.

"I must be going now," he said, quietly. "Storch will begin to be
impatient."

She picked a gilt hairpin from the floor. "Let me see if I've got
everything straight. To-morrow at eleven o'clock I am to see Hilmer
and tell him to postpone the launching. And to watch at the north gate
for a man with a kodak... And then?"

He reached for his hat. "If you do not hear from me you might come and
look me up. I'll be at Storch cottage on Rincon Hill ... at the foot
of Second Street. Anyone about can tell you which house is his."

Her lips were an ashen gray. "You mean you'll be there ... _dead?_"

"If you are afraid ..."

"_Afraid!_" She drew herself up proudly.

"Well ... there is danger for you, too... I should have thought of
that!"

"You do not understand even now." She went and stood close to him. "I
_love_ you ... can't you realize that?"

He felt suddenly abashed, as if he stood convicted of being a cup too
shallow to hold her outpouring.

"Good-by," he whispered.

She closed her eyes, lifting her brow for his waiting kiss. The heavy
perfume of her hair seemed to draw his soul to a prodigal outpouring.
He found her lips again, clasping her close.

"Good-by," he heard her answer.

And at that moment he felt the mysterious Presence that had swept so
close to him on that heartbreaking Christmas Eve at Fairview.

CHAPTER XXII

Storch was standing at the lodging-house door when Fred stepped into
the street.

"Well, what now?" Storch inquired, with mock politeness.

"Let's go home!" Fred returned, emphatically.

Almost as soon as the phrase had escaped him he had a sense of its
grotesqueness. Home! Yes, he had to admit that he felt a certain
affection for that huddled room which had witnessed so much spiritual
travail. Somehow its dusty rafters seemed saturated with a human
quality, as if they had imprisoned all the perverse longings and
bitter griefs of the company that once sat in the dim lamplight and
chanted their litany of hate. He never really had been a part of this
company ... he never really had been a part of any company. At the
office of Ford, Wetherbee & Co., at Fairview, at Storch's gatherings,
he had mingled with his fellow-men amiably or toleran