is eyes, for she looked so
touchingly young.

"I think," he said, "that I shall see all girls for ever as I see you at
this minute."

"Oh, you must not." Joan gave a sob. "They are not like me, really."

There was an awkward silence. Then:

"Will you tell me your name? Will you try to trust me--just a little? It
would prove it, if you only would."

"I do not want you to know my name. You must promise to keep from
knowing. It is all I ask."

"Will you let me tell you--mine?"

"No! no!" Joan put up her hands as if to ward off something tangible.

"I only meant"--Raymond dropped his eyes--"that there isn't anything
under heaven I wouldn't do to prove to you my sense of remorse. I
thought if you knew you might call upon me some day to prove myself. I'm
bungling, I know, but I wish I could make you understand how I feel."

"I do." And now Joan got up rather unsteadily. "And some day--I--I may
call upon you--for--for I have known your name--always!"

"What!"

"Please--forgive me. I was taking an advantage--but it did not seem to
matter then, and I must keep the advantage now--for your sake as well as
mine. And now, before we say good-bye, I want to tell you that I know
you are going to have your ideals again. You will try to get them back,
won't you?"

"I will get them back, yes! I only lost them when the devil in me drove
me mad."

"And bye and bye, try to believe that although one cannot make the
unreal real, still there are some foolish people that think they
can--and be kind to such people. Help them, do not hurt them."

"Will you--take my hand?" Raymond stretched his own forth.

"Why--of course--and tell you that I am glad, oh, so glad because--you
have come back! Glad because it was I not another who saw that other
you--for I can forget it!"

"And--and we are--to see each other some day?" This came hopefully.
"Some day--as we left ourselves--back before this?"

"Some day--some day? Perhaps. If we do--we will understand better than
we did then."

"Yes. We'll understand some things."

Raymond bent and touched Joan's hand with his lips and went quickly from
the room.

He was conscious of passing, on the stairs, a wet and draggled young
woman, but he did not pause to see the frightened look she cast upon
him.

A moment later Joan raised her head from the pillow on which she was
weeping the weakest--and the strongest--tears of her life.

"Oh! Pat," she sobbed. "Oh! Pat."

Patricia came to the