at an owl I am, Ruth. With returning health my old habits
seem to gain strength. I sleep more satisfactorily if I do it after
midnight." He settled back comfortably in his chair, and the fire,
encouraged by several small logs, rose to the occasion.

"I've been thinking about--Philip to-night."

"Poor girl. It was a year ago! To remember Phil best, we should be
cheerful, but the subconscious sadness ran through all the evening's fun
for you--and me, Ruth."

"Yes. Ralph, you only knew Phil a few years--never before he was
married?"

"No, but he was one of those men who do not belong to time limit nor
letters of introduction. His own knew him at a glance. There was no time
to be lost with Phil. I've often noticed that faculty for deep and
ready friendship among people who are here for only a short life. Others
can afford to weigh and consider; they must garner quickly, and the
Master seems to have equipped them."

"Ralph, was Phil a man that you felt you knew, really knew, I mean?"

"Yes; as to essentials. I never saw any one so positive as to the high
lights. Honesty, truth, good faith, and a broad humanity. I always knew
he had trouble that he did not talk about; he hinted that much to me
once or twice, but the silence regarding it only intensified his own
personality, of which he gave lavishly."

The woman bending toward the fire, shivered, and as her head sank lower,
one shining braid of hair dropped forward, shielding her face.

"Ralph--I sometimes think the thing I have to do is the--hardest that
ever woman had to do." The words were uttered with a moan that drove
Drew into a silence more eloquent than any question he could have put.
He realized that the woman beside him must tread the rough path of
confession alone, and as she could. In his heart he prayed for strength
to be beside her when all was done.

"If ever a sin saved, Philip's sin saved him, and yet he counted it as
nothing at the last. He bade me do for him what he could not do for
himself--I have never been able to begin until--to-night. He said--he
had no right to friends nor the trust and favour of love. But he never
was able to renounce them; I must strike them down one by one--now he is
gone.

"I must do as he would have me do--I see the justice, if the end is to
be obtained, but thank God, I, who loved him--can still love him--and he
has been dead a year!"

The pain-racked eyes looked straight into Drew's with a sort of
challenge. But D