better. Now
talk to me."

The little clock was striking six when at last he rose to go. The room
was dark, with only the glow of the wood fire on Audrey's face. He found
her very lovely, rather chastened and subdued, but much more appealing
than in her old days of sparkle and high spirits.

"You are looking very sweet, Audrey."

"Am I? How nice of you!"

She got up and stood on the hearth-rug beside him, looking up at him.
Then, "Don't be startled, Clay," she announced, smilingly. "I am going
to kiss you--for Christmas."

And kiss him she did, putting both hands on his shoulders, and rising on
her toes to do it. It was a very small kiss, and Clayton took it calmly,
and as she intended him to take it. But it was, at that, rather a
flushed Audrey who bade him good-night and God bless you.

Clayton took away with him from that visit a great peace and a great
relief. He had talked out to her for more than an hour of the many
things that puzzled and bewildered him. He had talked war, and the mill,
and even Graham and his problems. And by talking of them some of them
had clarified. A little of his unrest had gone. He felt encouraged, he
had a new strength to go on. It was wonderful, he reflected, what the
friendship of a woman could mean to a man. He was quite convinced that
it was only friendship.

He turned toward home reluctantly. Behind him was the glow of Audrey's
fire, and the glow that had been in her eyes when he entered. If a man
had such a woman behind him...

He went into his great, silent house, and the door closed behind him
like a prison gate.

For a long time after he had gone, Audrey, doors closed to visitors, sat
alone by her fire, with one of his roses held close to her cheek.

In her small upper room, in a white frame cottage on the hill
overlooking the Spencer furnaces, Anna Klein, locked away from prying
eyes, sat that same Christmas evening and closely inspected a tiny gold
wrist-watch. And now and then, like Audrey, she pressed it to her face.

Not the gift, but the giver.

CHAPTER XIV

Having turned Dunbar and his protective league over to Hutchinson, the
general manager, Clayton had put him out of his mind. But during the
week after Christmas he reached the office early one morning to find
that keen and rather shabby gentleman already there, waiting.

Not precisely waiting, for he was standing by one of the windows, well
back from it, and inspecting the mill yard with sharp, d