ht the world, listening, to her
feet. Seized in the thrall of his work, Barney grimly held to it, come
what might. No such absorbing passion possessed Iola. And Iola, while
she was provoked by what she called his stubbornness, was yet secretly
proud of that silently resisting strength she could neither shake nor
break. No, Barney was not fitted for the role of the shadowy, pliant,
convenient husband.

What, then, in her plan of life would be his place? It startled her to
discover that her plan had been complete without him. Complete? Ah, no.
Her life without Barney would be like a house without its back wall.
During these years of study and toil, while Barney could only give her
snatches of his time, she had come to feel with increasing strength that
her life was built round about him. When others had been applauding her
successes, she waited for Barney's word; and though beside the clever,
brilliant men that moved in the circle into which her art had brought
her he might appear awkward and dull, yet it was Barney who continued
to be the standard by which she judged men. With all his need of polish,
his poverty of small talk, his hopeless ignorance of the conventions,
and his obvious disregard of them, the massive strength of him, his fine
sense of honour, his chivalrous bearing toward women, added a touch of
reverence to the love she bore him. But more than all, it was to Barney
her heart turned for its rest. She knew well that she held in all its
depth and strength his heart's love. He would never fail her. She could
not exhaust that deep well. But the question returned, where would
Barney be while she was being conducted by acclaiming multitudes along
her triumphal way? "Oh, he will wait--we will wait," she corrected,
shrinking from the heartlessness of the former phrasing. How many years
she could not say. But deep in her heart was the determination that
nothing should stand in the way of the ambition she had so long
cherished and for which she had so greatly endured.

She opened the note with lingering deliberation as one dallies with an
approaching delight.

"MY DEAR IOLA: I have always told you the truth. I could not see you
last evening, nor can I to-day, and perhaps not for a day or two,
because my face is disfigured. These are the facts: At the dinner, night
before last, Dr. Bulling lied about you. I made him swallow his lie
and in the process got rather badly marked, though not at all hurt. The
doctor an