heir emotion, they became conscious that this was indeed
their hour. She told him all that she had dreamed he might do. Her
color came and went as she drew the picture of his future. Some of the
advice she gave was girlish, impracticable, but through it all ran the
thread of her faith to him. She felt that she had the solution. That
through service he was to find--God.

It was a wonderful hour for Roger Poole. An hour which was to shine
like a star in his memory. Mary's mind had a largeness of vision, the
ability to rise above the lesser things in order to reach the greater,
which seemed super-feminine. It was not until afterward when he
reviewed what they had said, that he was conscious that she had placed
the emphasis on what he was to do. Not once had she spoken of what had
been done--not once had she spoken of his wife.

"You mustn't bury yourself. You must find a way to reach first one
group and then another. And after a time you'll begin to feel that you
can face the world."

He winced. As she put it into words, he began to see himself as others
must have seen him. And the review was not a pleasant one.

In a sense that hour with Mary Ballard in the screened space by the
fire was the hour of Roger Poole's spiritual awakening. He realized
for the first time that he had missed the meaning of the candles on the
altar, the voices in the choir; he had missed the knowledge that one
must spend and be spent in the service of humanity.

"I must think it over," he said. "You mustn't expect too much of me
all at once."

"I shall expect--everything."

As she spoke and smiled, and it seemed to him that his old garment of
fear slipped from him--as if he were clothed in the shining armor of
her confidence in him.

They had little time to talk after that, for it was not long before
they heard without the bray of a motor horn.

Roger rose at once.

"I must go before they come," he said.

But she laid her hand upon his arm. "No," she said, "you are not to
go. You are never going to run away from the world again. Set aside
the screen, please--and stay."

Porter, picked up on the way, came in with the others, to behold that
glowing corner, and those two together.

With his red crest flaming, he advanced upon them.

"Somebody said 'tea.' May I have some, Mary?"

"When the kettle boils." She had risen, and was holding out her hand
to him.

As the two men shook hands, Porter was conscious of some