w you would be sorry if you had gone
too far. I remembered our promise to be friends."

She threw a touch of real feeling into her tone, and he responded, "Yes,
and I thank you for it, though it isn't easy."

She put out her hand to him, and, as he questioningly took it, she
pressed his with animation. "Of course it isn't! Or it wouldn't be for
any other man. But don't you suppose I appreciate that supreme courage
of yours? There is nobody else-nobody!--who could stand up to an
impertinence and turn it to praise by such humility."

"Don't go too far, or I shall be turning your praise to impertinence
by my humility. You're quite right, though, about the main matter. I
needn't suppose anything so preposterous as you suggest, to feel that
people are best left alone to outlive their troubles, unless they are of
the most obvious kind."

"Now, if I thought I had done anything to stop you from offering that
sort of helpfulness which makes you a blessing to everybody, I should
never forgive myself."

"Nothing so dire as that, I believe. But if you've made me question the
propriety of applying the blessing in all cases, you have done a very
good thing."

Miss Rasmith was silent and apparently serious. After a moment she said,
"And I, for my part, promise to let poor little Boyne alone."

Breckon laughed. "Don't burlesque it! Besides, I haven't promised
anything."

"That is very true," said Miss Rasmith, and she laughed, too.

XVI.

In one of those dramatic reveries which we all hold with ourselves when
fortune has pressingly placed us, Ellen Kenton had imagined it possible
for her to tell her story to the man who had so gently and truly tried
to be her friend. It was mostly in the way of explaining to him how she
was unworthy of his friendship that the story was told, and she fancied
telling it without being scandalized at violating the conventions that
should have kept her from even dreaming of such a thing. It was all
exalted to a plane where there was no question of fit or unfit in doing
it, but only the occasion; and he would never hear of the unworthiness
which she wished to ascribe to herself. Sometimes he mournfully left
her when she persisted, left her forever, and sometimes he refused,
and retained with her in a sublime kindness, a noble amity, lofty and
serene, which did not seek to become anything else. In this case she
would break from her reveries with self-accusing cries, under her
breath, of "Si