r forehead. But she was statelier,
nobler, and gentler than ever. Falconer looked at her calmly, with
only a still swelling at the heart, as if they met on the threshold of
heaven. All the selfishness of passion was gone, and the old earlier
adoration, elevated and glorified, had returned. He was a boy once more
in the presence of a woman-angel. She did not shrink from his gaze, she
did not withdraw her hand from his clasp.

'I am so glad, Robert!' was all she said.

'So am I,' he answered quietly. 'We may meet sometimes then?'

'Yes. Perhaps we can help each other.'

'You can help me,' said Falconer. 'I have a girl I don't know what to do
with.'

'Send her to me. I will take care of her.'

'I will bring her. But I must come and see you first.'

'That will tell you where I live,' she said, giving him a card.
Good-bye.'

'Till to-morrow,' said Falconer.

'She's not like that Bible fellow,' said De Fleuri, as he entered his
room again. 'She don't walk into your house as if it was her own.'

He was leaning against his idle loom, which, like a dead thing, filled
the place with the mournfulness of death. Falconer took a broken chair,
the only one, and sat down.

'I am going to take a liberty with you, Mr. De Fleuri,' he said.

'As you please, Mr. Falconer.'

'I want to tell you the only fault I have to you.'

'Yes?'

'You don't do anything for the people in the house. Whether you believe
in God or not, you ought to do what you can for your neighbour.'

He held that to help a neighbour is the strongest antidote to unbelief,
and an open door out of the bad air of one's own troubles, as well.

De Fleuri laughed bitterly, and rubbed his hand up and down his empty
pocket. It was a pitiable action. Falconer understood it.

'There are better things than money: sympathy, for instance. You could
talk to them a little.'

'I have no sympathy, sir.'

'You would find you had, if you would let it out.'

'I should only make them more miserable. If I believed as you do, now,
there might be some use.'

'There's that widow with her four children in the garret. The poor
little things are tormented by the rats: couldn't you nail bits of wood
over their holes?'

De Fleuri laughed again.

'Where am I to get the bits of wood, except I pull down some of those
laths. And they wouldn't keep them out a night.'

'Couldn't you ask some carpenter?'

'I won't ask a favour.'

'I shouldn't mind asking, now.'

'That's be