against
the window.

An exclamation which was almost one of anger burst from him, and going
to where she stood, he laid his hand upon her arm as if in the effort to
recall her reason by physical force. But with his first touch his grasp
lost its energy and grew gentle, for her anguish appeared to him, as he
held her, to be only the instinctive crying out of a child that is hurt.
His hold slipped from her arm, and taking her hands, he bent over and
kissed them until they lay quiet in his own.

"Laura, do you trust my love for you?" he asked.

"I trust you, yes," she answered, "but not love--it is only one of the
wires by which we are moved."

"Trust anything you please about me, so long as you trust--that is all I
ask," he let her hands fall from his and looked into her face. "Promise
me that you will be here waiting when I return."

"There's no place for me to go--I shall be here," she answered.

Her eyes followed him with a pathetic child-like fear while he crossed
the room and went out leaving her alone.

CHAPTER V

BETWEEN LAURA AND GERTY

Did he possess the strength as well as the love that she needed? Adams
asked himself a little later as he walked back under the stars. He saw
her as he had just left her--wan, despairing; so bloodless that the
light seemed shining through her features, and then he remembered the
radiant smile which she had lost, the glorious womanhood obscured now by
humiliation. An assurance, in which there was almost exultation, flooded
his thoughts, and he was aware that the passion he felt for her had been
suddenly strengthened by an emotion of equal power--by the longing born
in his heart to afford protection to whatever suffered within his sight.

Never for an instant, since he had entered the room where she retreated
before him, had he doubted either his appointed mission or his power of
renewal. His whole experience, he understood now, had directed him to
this hour which he had not foreseen, and the worldly success for which
he had once struggled meant to him at last only that he might bring hope
where there was failure. Even Connie--her love, her tragic history, her
pitiable reliance upon him at the end--showed to him in the aspect of a
human revelation--for his fuller understanding of Connie had confirmed
him in the patience by which alone he might win back Laura to the
happiness which she had lost.

The road stretching ahead of him was no longer obscured, but shone