ders. "Keep a stiff upper lip, old chap," he urged gently. "Don't
knock under. She'll be coming to you for comfort presently."

"Not she!" groaned Will. "I shall never get near her again. She'll
never come back to me. I know. I know."

"Don't be a fool!" said Nick still gently. "You don't know. Of course
she will come back to you. If you stick to her, she'll stick to you."

Will made a choked sound of dissent. Nevertheless, after a moment he
raised his quivering face, and gripped hard the hand that pressed his
shoulder. "Thanks, dear fellow! You're awfully good. Forgive me for
making an ass of myself. I--I was awfully fond of the little nipper
too. Poor Daisy! She'll be frightfully cut up." He broke off, biting
his lips.

"Do you know," he said presently in a strained whisper, "I've wanted
her sometimes--so horribly, that--that I've even been fool enough to
pray about it."

He glanced up as he made this confidence, half expecting to read
ridicule on the alert face above him, but the expression it wore
surprised him. It was almost a fighting look, and wholly free from
contempt.

Nick seated himself on the edge of the table, and smote him on the
shoulder. "My dear chap," he said, with a sudden burst of energy,
"you're only at the beginning of things. It isn't just praying now and
then that does it. You've got to keep up the steam, never slack for an
instant, whatever happens. The harder going it is, the more likely
you are to win through if you stick to it. But directly you slack,
you lose ground. If you've only got the grit to go on praying, praying
hard, even against your own convictions, you'll get it sooner or
later. You are bound to get it. They say God doesn't always grant
prayer because the thing you want may not do you any good. That's
gammon--futile gammon. If you want it hard enough, and keep on
clamouring for it, it becomes the very thing of all others you
need--the great essential. And you'll get it for that very reason.
It's sheer pluck that counts, nothing else--the pluck to go on
fighting when you know perfectly well you're beaten, the pluck to hang
on and worry, worry, worry, till you get your heart's desire."

He sprang up with a wide-flung gesture. "I'm doing it myself," he
said, and his voice rang with a certain grim elation. "I'm doing it
myself. And God knows I sha'n't give Him any peace till I'm satisfied.
I may be small, but if I were no bigger than a mosquito, I'd keep on
buzzing."

He w