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"Yes But would it make life any easier for hied down?"

"No Ifor him?"

"No woman ever did That is a sentimental falsehood of the emotional No woman ever did help a man in that way Sylvia, if love were the only question, and if you do truly love hih to advise you to be a fool Even then you'd be sorry You knohat your future may be; you knohat you are fitted for What can you do without Howard? In this town your rôle would be a very minor one without Howard's money, and you know it"

"Yes, I know it"

"And your sacrifice could not help that doomed boy"

Sylvia nodded assent

"Then, is there any choice? Is there any question of what to do?"

Sylvia looked out into the winter sky, through the tops of snowy trees; everywhere the stark, deathly rigidity of winter Under it, frozen, lay the rain that had scented the air Under her ahosts of yesterday

"No," she said, "there is no question of choice I knohat ht, looked up as Sylvia rose from her desk and ca at her feet, resting her cheek against the elder woth sufficient to corave, lay it away decently and in quiet befitting

Sore doubt assailed Grace Ferrall, guiltily aware that once again she had meddled; and in the cal backward along the pleasant path she had trodden with its little reeable ave her lest she had counselled this young girl wrongly, co her to the arid lovelessness which she herself had never known

Leaning there, her fingers lingering in light caress on Sylvia's bright hair, for every doubt she brought up argu within her heart she opposed the chilling reason of co to her caprice for Siward There was other happiness in the world besides the non-essential one of love That must be Sylvia's portion And after all--and after all, love was a ree; and it ell for Sylvia that she had the htly--well for her that it had advanced so little, lest she suspect what its crowning ht be and fall sick of a passion for what she had forever lost