can't conceive of feeling that a father means only
a--tormentor. But--think of it."

He felt Joyce shiver beside him, and stopped abruptly, shaken by a
sudden consciousness that had never before occurred to him. Could it be
that out of her own experience she did comprehend? She looked up
piteously and her face was white in the dusk.

"Yes, I could," she murmured in a husky whisper. "I know, I understand."

He dared not speak he was so filled with emotion. It had rushed over him
in a flood. To think she had suffered so--_she_! In a minute her
plaintive voice broke upon him once more.

"It's like this. Lucy can't be so sorry as she ought to be, and it is
dreadful to her. It is like those fearful dreams when we long to get
somewhere and cannot take a step, or ache to cry out and cannot make a
sound. She aches to feel sorrier; she is ashamed that she cannot. But
grief sits back and laughs at hers, and will not be coaxed into her
company. It nearly kills her that it is so, for she is a good,
conscientious girl who wants to do and to be right--oh, poor little
Lucy!"

He took her shaking hand and drew it gently within his arm. She was
weeping behind her veil, and he felt the passion in her outburst. He was
not stupid; he had known James Early. He could feel to his soul what was
passing in hers, and the revelation wrung him as no sorrow had ever
wrung him before. If he but dared to comfort her, to assure her that
here was a friend who would stand between her and every wrong in future!
After a little he dared trust himself to answer.

"Miss Lavillotte, I think life is always harder than it looks from the
outside--yet easier, too. At the worst something comes to help out. And,
just because it is so hard, it can be no sin to be glad and happy when
Heaven gives us the chance. No decent person will kick a man when he is
down; neither does fate. When you talk to Lucy again just tell her to
enjoy all she can, and honor her poor father by believing that, wherever
he may be now, he will be glad to know she is trying to be happy."

If the words held double solace no one could guess it by Dalton's
manner. It was decidedly matter-of-fact above its tenderness. Joyce did
not answer, except by a long sighing breath, but there was relief in its
sound. Her hand still rested in the arm of her manager, and a feeling of
safety and contentment gradually stole into her heart, often sore for
her own loneliness, as well as over the woes of oth