abandoned. Suddenly her eyes,
dry and fiercely burning for so long, were wet with tears. It was true.
It was true. A little work, a little sleep, a little love. Not the
great love, perhaps, not the only love of a man's life. Not the love of
yesterday, but of to-day and to-morrow.

All the fierce repression of the last weeks was gone. She began to
suffer. She saw Dick coming home, perhaps high with hope that whatever
she knew she would understand and forgive. And she saw herself failing
him, cold and shut away, not big enough nor woman enough to meet him
half way. She saw him fighting his losing battle alone, protecting David
but never himself; carrying Lucy to her quiet grave; sitting alone in
his office, while the village walked by and stared at the windows; she
saw him, gaining harbor after storm, and finding no anchorage there.

She turned and went, half blindly, into the empty street.

She thought he was at the early service. She did not see him, but she
had once again the thing that had seemed lost forever, the warm sense of
his thought of her.

He was there, in the shadowy back pew, with the grill behind it through
which once insistent hands had reached to summon him. He was there, with
Lucy's prayer-book in his hand, and none of the peace of the day in his
heart. He knelt and rose with the others.

"O God, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of
Thy Son--"

XLVIII

David was beaten; most tragic defeat of all, beaten by those he had
loved and faithfully served.

He did not rise on Christmas morning, and Dick, visiting him after an
almost untasted breakfast, found him still in his bed and questioned him
anxiously.

"I'm all right," he asserted. "I'm tired, Dick, that's all. Tired of
fighting. You're young. You can carry it on, and win. But I'll never see
it. They're stronger than we are."

Later he elaborated on that. He had kept the faith. He had run with
courage the race that was set before him. He had stayed up at night and
fought for them. But he couldn't fight against them.

Dick went downstairs again and shutting himself in his office fell to
pacing the floor. David was right, the thing was breaking him. Very
seriously now he contemplated abandoning the town, taking David with
him, and claiming his estate. They could travel then; he could get
consultants in Europe; there were baths there, and treatments--

The doorbell rang. He heard Minnie's voice in the hail, not