you sure you understand about Max Wilson and myself?"

"I understand."

"Don't you think you are taking a risk?"

"Every one makes mistakes now and then, and loving women have made
mistakes since the world began. Most people live in glass houses, Miss
Harrison. And don't make any mistake about this: people can always come
back. No depth is too low. All they need is the willpower."

He smiled down at her. She had come armed with confession. But the offer
he made was too alluring. It meant reinstatement, another chance, when
she had thought everything was over. After all, why should she damn
herself? She would go back. She would work her finger-ends off for him.
She would make it up to him in other ways. But she could not tell him
and lose everything.

"Come," he said. "Shall we go back and start over again?"

He held out his hand.

CHAPTER XXIX

Late September had come, with the Street, after its summer indolence
taking up the burden of the year. At eight-thirty and at one the school
bell called the children. Little girls in pig-tails, carrying freshly
sharpened pencils, went primly toward the school, gathering, comet
fashion, a tail of unwilling brothers as they went.

An occasional football hurtled through the air. Le Moyne had promised
the baseball club a football outfit, rumor said, but would not coach
them himself this year. A story was going about that Mr. Le Moyne
intended to go away.

The Street had been furiously busy for a month. The cobblestones had
gone, and from curb to curb stretched smooth asphalt. The fascination
of writing on it with chalk still obsessed the children. Every few yards
was a hop-scotch diagram. Generally speaking, too, the Street had put up
new curtains, and even, here and there, had added a coat of paint.

To this general excitement the strange case of Mr. Le Moyne had added
its quota. One day he was in the gas office, making out statements that
were absolutely ridiculous. (What with no baking all last month, and
every Sunday spent in the country, nobody could have used that amount of
gas. They could come and take their old meter out!) And the next there
was the news that Mr. Le Moyne had been only taking a holiday in the
gas office,--paying off old scores, the barytone at Mrs. McKee's
hazarded!--and that he was really a very great surgeon and had saved Dr.
Max Wilson.

The Street, which was busy at the time deciding whether to leave the old
sidewalks or to put down