s
much a mere instrument as his club was. I am only trying to find out
how much I am to blame myself. I had no thought of Mr. Dryfoos's going
there--of his attempting to talk with the strikers and keep them quiet;
I was only thinking, as women do, of what I should try to do if I were a
man.

"But perhaps he understood me to ask him to go--perhaps my words sent
him to his death."

She had a sort of calm in her courage to know the worst truth as to
her responsibility that forbade any wish to flatter her out of it. "I'm
afraid," said March, "that is what can never be known now." After a
moment he added: "But why should you wish to know? If he went there as
a peacemaker, he died in a good cause, in such a way as he would wish to
die, I believe."

"Yes," said the girl; "I have thought of that. But death is awful; we
must not think patiently, forgivingly of sending any one to their
death in the best cause."--"I fancy life was an awful thing to Conrad
Dryfoos," March replied. "He was thwarted and disappointed, without even
pleasing the ambition that thwarted and disappointed him. That poor
old man, his father, warped him from his simple, lifelong wish to be a
minister, and was trying to make a business man of him. If it will be
any consolation to you to know it, Miss Vance, I can assure you that
he was very unhappy, and I don't see how he could ever have been happy
here."

"It won't," said the girl, steadily. "If people are born into this
world, it's because they were meant to live in it. It isn't a question
of being happy here; no one is happy, in that old, selfish way, or can
be; but he could have been of great use."

"Perhaps he was of use in dying. Who knows? He may have been trying to
silence Lindau."

"Oh, Lindau wasn't worth it!" cried Mrs. March.

Miss Vance looked at her as if she did not quite understand. Then she
turned to March. "He might have been unhappy, as we all are; but I know
that his life here would have had a higher happiness than we wish for or
aim for." The tears began to run silently down her cheeks.

"He looked strangely happy that day when he left me. He had hurt
himself somehow, and his face was bleeding from a scratch; he kept his
handkerchief up; he was pale, but such a light came into his face when
he shook hands--ah, I know he went to try and do what I said!" They were
all silent, while she dried her eyes and then put her handkerchief back
into the pocket from which she had suddenly pu