t we are free to drive the best obtainable bargain
with destiny."

As at other times, he was once more yielding to the impulse which was
always prompting him to apply the acid test to the pure gold of the
ideal. Heretofore the test had revealed no trace of earthly alloy; but
now the result filled him with vague dismay.

"So you have said many times before," she rejoined, and her voice was as
the voice of one groping in the dark. "I--I have a confession to make,
Mr. Griswold: I have held out against you, knowing all the time that you
were right; that life is full of these bitter compromises which we are
forced to accept. Please forget what I have said about your _Fidelia_
and--and your _Joan_. You are trying to make them human, and that is as
it should be."

Griswold could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. He told
himself fiercely that he would never believe, without the convincement
of fact, that the ideal could step down from its pedestal.

"You are meaning to be kind to me now, at the expense of your
convictions, Miss Charlotte," he protested warmly.

"No," she denied gravely. "Listen, and you shall judge. Once, only a
short time ago, I was brought face to face with one of these terrible
compromises. In a single instant, and by no fault of my own, the
dreadful shears of fate were thrust into my hands, and conscience--what
I have been taught to call the Christian conscience--told me that with
them I must snip the thread of a man's life. Are you listening?"

His lips were dry and he had to moisten them before he could say: "Yes,
go on; I am listening."

"The man was a criminal and he was a fugitive from justice.
Conscience--_my_ conscience--insisted that it was my plain duty to raise
the hue and cry. For a long time I couldn't do it; and then----"

He waited until the silence had grown unbearable before he prompted her.
"And then?"

"And then chance threw us together. A new world was opened to me in
those few moments. I had thought that there could be no possible
question between simple right and wrong, but almost in his first word
the man convinced me that, whatever I might think or the world might
say, _his_ conscience had fully and freely acquitted him. And he proved
it; proved it so that I can never doubt it as long as I live. He made me
do what _my_ conscience had been telling me I ought to do--just as your
_Fleming_ makes _Fidelia_ do."

"You denounced him?" he said, and he strove desperatel