ow, and he realised that so far as he lived at all he
lived not in the hour alone, but in eternity, that so far as he had won
peace it was bound up in a passionate conviction of the survival of the
universe within his soul. To-day or to-morrow, in the minute or in
eternity, he saw that wherever God is there will always be immortal
life.

Turning back into the room he looked again at Laura's picture with a
longing which had not freed itself as yet from the idea of renouncement.
Even now he realised that he had been strong enough to live without her,
and with the admission, he was aware again of that wider sympathy which
had been his compensation in a forefeiture of personal love. His
happiness he had told himself a year ago depended neither upon
possession nor upon any passage of events, yet to-night his heart
strained after her in a tenderness which seemed to bring her visible
presence before him in the room. His love for her appeared not only as a
part of his love for God, but as a part, also, of his sorrows, his
bitter patience, his renouncement and of the compassion which had sprung
from the agony and the enlightenment of his failure. Sorrow he could
still feel--the deepest human grief might be his portion to-morrow, but
while this unfading light shone in his soul, he knew that it was
ordained that he should conquer in the end. By this knowledge alone he
had at last won through suffering into the open places of the spirit
where were joy and freedom.

A ring at the bell startled him from his abstraction, and with an
impatient eagerness for news, he hastened to the door, where a boy
thrust at him a small folded sheet of paper. As he opened it he felt
that his hand trembled, for even before he read the words, he knew that
Laura's appeal to him had come.

"I need a friend. Will you help me?" was all that she had written.

He motioned the boy to come inside, and then stood looking at him
enquiringly as he got into his overcoat.

"Do you go back with me?" he asked.

The boy nodded while he pulled at a scarlet handkerchief about his neck.
Adams noticed that though he was stunted and anaemic in appearance, he
wore his shabby overcoat with an almost rakish swagger. His mouth was
filled with chewing-gum which he rolled aside in his cheek when he
talked.

"Is it far?" Adams enquired in a hopeless effort to extort information
however meagre.

The boy looked important, almost mysterious.

"Yep," he responded, adding i