He surrendered. "I do know it. And I need your help."

Shaken by their 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.




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