sion in her
eyes; they showed him a new heaven and a new earth.

"It was you always, K.," she confessed. "I just didn't realize it. But
now, when you look back, don't you see it was?"

He looked back over the months when she had seemed as unattainable as
the stars, and he did not see it. He shook his head.

"I never had even a hope."

"Not when I came to you with everything? I brought you all my troubles,
and you always helped."

Her eyes filled. She bent down and kissed one of his hands. He was so
happy that the foolish little caress made his heart hammer in his ears.

"I think, K., that is how one can always tell when it is the right one,
and will be the right one forever and ever. It is the person--one goes
to in trouble."

He had no words for that, only little caressing touches of her arm, her
hand. Perhaps, without knowing it, he was formulating a sort of prayer
that, since there must be troubles, she would, always come to him and he
would always be able to help her.

And Sidney, too, fell silent. She was recalling the day she became
engaged to Max, and the lost feeling she had had. She did not feel the
same at all now. She felt as if she had been wandering, and had come
home to the arms that were about her. She would be married, and take the
risk that all women took, with her eyes open. She would go through the
valley of the shadow, as other women did; but K. would be with her.
Nothing else mattered. Looking into his steady eyes, she knew that she
was safe. She would never wither for him.

Where before she had felt the clutch of inexorable destiny, the woman's
fate, now she felt only his arms about her, her cheek on his shabby
coat.

"I shall love you all my life," she said shakily.

His arms tightened about her.

The little house was dark when they got back to it. The Street, which
had heard that Mr. Le Moyne approved of night air, was raising its
windows for the night and pinning cheesecloth bags over its curtains to
keep them clean.

In the second-story front room at Mrs. McKee's, the barytone slept
heavily, and made divers unvocal sounds. He was hardening his throat,
and so slept with a wet towel about it.

Down on the doorstep, Mrs. McKee and Mr. Wagner sat and made love with
the aid of a lighted match and the pencil-pad.

The car drew up at the little house, and Sidney got out. Then it drove
away, for K. must take it to the garage and walk back.

Sidney sat on the doorstep and waited. Ho