has done me more good. I want you to take your profession very, very seriously. If it is true that you have the gift of healing and the gift of music, and I think it is, you will not be unhappy, nor lonely long."
And the poor fellow, who was really thinking all that time of the bad news and how to break it, listened to her, hearing only half she said. He did not know how to break his news, that was the truth, yet dared not leave it unbroken.
"When is Mr. Stanton coming down?" he asked her.
"Why do you dwell upon it? You have this afternoon, make the best of the time. I should like to think you were glad, not sorry we met."
He broke into crude and confused speech then and told her all she had meant to him, what new views of life she had given to him.
"You have been a perfect revelation to me. I had not dreamed a woman could be so sweet …" And then, stammeringly, he thanked her for everything. He was a little overcome because he was not sure this happiness of hers was going to last, that it would not be almost immediately eclipsed. He really did love her and in the best way, would have secured her happiness at the expense of his own, would have sacrificed everything he held dear to save her from what he feared was inevitable. He was miserably undecided, and could not throw
