The unnaturally bright eyes gazed into his as if they didn't quite understand, and then through the tears she slowly said:

"You have saved me from hell. I'm afraid I haven't long to live. I'll only ask God that it shall be long enough for me to show you how grateful I am."

Stuart walked home with a sense of spiritual elation he had never felt before. For the first time he had given himself utterly without the hope of reward. A new joy filled his heart with a warm glow. Life began to take a deep, new meaning. The boundaries of the world had been extended to include millions whose existence he had ignored. How vast and thrilling their life! As yet, no new purpose had shaped itself within, but his soul was stirring with vague, mighty impulses.

When he reached the house on Washington Square it was yet early in the evening. He longed for the sweet restfulness which Harriet's presence always brought. He had often come home from a visit to Nan, which had been a continuous torture, to find in her a grateful peace. How strange that we so often love those who have the supreme faculty of torturing instead of making us happy. He found Harriet reading in the library.

"Oh, Jim, dear, where on earth have you been for nearly two days?" she cried. "I haven't seen you since the wedding----"

"Won't you sing for me?" he broke in.

A smile of pride made her face radiant.

"You want to hear me this late?"

"Yes--you'll not disturb anybody."

"All right----" she paused and suddenly clapped her hands. "I'll get my mandolin. You've never heard me play that, have you? I've learned 'Way down on the Swannee Ribber' on it. I know you'll like it."

She ran up the stairs and returned in a moment with the mandolin.

Softly touching a note, she seated herself and began to sing, accompanying her song with the little half-doubtful touch on the plaintive strings.

Stuart listened, entranced. He had heard that old song of the South a hundred times. But she was singing it to-night with a strange new power. Or was it his imagination? He listened with keen and more critical ears. No. It was not his imagination. The change was in her voice. He heard with increasing wonder. The quivering notes of tenderness sought his inmost being and stirred the deepest emotion--not with memories of his boyhood days in the South whose glory the song was telling--but in visions of the future, thoughts of great deeds to be done and heroic sacrifice to be endured.

How selfish his life had been after all. Every dream and struggle had been for himself. A feeling of shame overspread his soul as he watched the girl's soft little hand touch the strings, and he contrasted his own life with the sweetness of her spirit. In all the years he had known her he could not recall a single mean or selfish act. Her face was not beautiful by the standard of artists, but the sunlight lingered in her eyes, her hands were cunning, and her feet swift to serve those she loved. For the last two years as she had blossomed into maidenhood, a subtle fragrance had enveloped her being, making significant and charming all she said or did, revealing new beauty and grace at every turn.

From some shadowy memory of a Sunday's service in his boyhood came floating into his heart the words "He that seeketh to save his life shall lose it."

The groping hand that had been fumbling in the dark suddenly touched the hidden spring, and the darkened soul was flooded with light. A strange peace entered to abide forever. A man had been born again--of the spirit, not the flesh.

The rapt look still held his face when the music had ceased, and Harriet watched his expression for a moment in silence.

The girl leaned forward at last with eager interest and laid her friendly hand on his. She had a trick of leaning forward like that when talking to him that had always amused Stuart.

He watched the flashes of light in her eyes beneath their long lashes and the quiver of the mobile mouth.

"Tell me what you are thinking about, Jim?" she said, a smile flitting around her tender, expressive eyes.

Stuart noticed two dainty dimples come with the smile in the faintest suggestion of coquetry.

"I was seeing a vision, little pal," he began slowly--"the vision of a gala night of Grand opera. Broadway blazed with light and I was fighting my way through the throng at the entrance to hear a great singer whose voice had begun to thrill the world. At last amid a hush of intense silence, she came before the footlights, saw and conquered.

The crowd went mad with enthusiasm. For once an American audience forgot its cold self-possession. Men leaped on their seats, cheered and shouted as Frenchmen or Italians. Women in resplendent gowns and jewels rose in their boxes and split their gloves clapping their hands. And through it all the singer stood bowing in simple dignity, looking over the sea of faces as if in search of one she knew. I lifted my hat and waved it on high until she saw. A beautiful smile lighted her face and straight over the heads of the people she blew me a kiss----"

[Illustration: "'I was seeing a vision, little pal'"]

The tiniest frown clouded the girl's brow.

"Who was she, Jim?"

"One who shall yet sing before Kings and Princes--I call her 'Sunshine'--her name is Harriet Woodman."

With a sigh of relief she threw herself back in the big armchair in a pose of natural grace, her lips twitched, the golden head tipped to one side thoughtfully, and he waited for her to speak.

"But, Jim, suppose I'm not ambitious? Suppose I'm just a silly little home body who only wishes to be loved?"

"And so you will be loved. They will come in troops--these lovers--serious and gay, and fall at your feet----"

"But if I only want one--and he is not there--they will tire me, won't they?"

"When I see those two dimples come into your cheeks now and then I think you will enjoy it."

"Perhaps I would."

The head nodded in quick friendly understanding. She raised her arms and touched the bow of ribbon on her luxuriant hair with another suggestion of coquetry, quickly lowered them, drew the short skirt down further over her knees, gazed thoughtfully at Stuart, and with a quizzical look in her eyes asked:

"How old do you think a girl must be to really and deeply and truly love, Jim?"

Stuart's brow contracted and he took her hand in his, stroked it tenderly and studied the beautiful lines as they melted from the firmly shaped wrist into the rounded arm and gracefully moulded body.

"I'm afraid you've asked a bigger question than I can answer, dear," he said, with serious accent. "I've been wondering lately whether the world hasn't lost the secret of happy mating and marrying. A more beautiful even life I have never seen than the one in the home of my childhood. Yet my mother was only fourteen and my father twenty-one when they were married. You see, dear, that was in the old days when boys and girls were not afraid--when love dared to laugh at cares about houses and lands and goods and chattels, when Nature claimed her own, when the voices of the deepest impulses of our bodies and souls were heard first and the chatterings about careers and social triumphs were left to settle themselves. Now folks only allow themselves to marry in cold blood, calculating with accuracy their bank accounts. My mother had been married six months at your age, and yet here I sit on a pedestal and have the impudence to talk to you as a child----"

"But you're not impudent, Jim," she broke in eagerly, "and I understand."

Her eyes were looking steadily into his.

"I'm beginning to wonder," Stuart continued, "whether Nature made a mistake when she made woman as she is. I once knew a girl of fifteen to whom I believe life was the deepest tragedy or the highest joy of which her heart will ever be capable. Else why did the blood come and go so quickly in her cheeks?"

A sudden flush mantled Harriet's face and she turned away that he might not see.

"Why did she fuel the loud beating of her heart at the approach of the man she imagined to be her hero? Why did she drop her eyes in confusion----"

The deep brown eyes were looking into his now with a steady light. She had mastered herself and he could not guess her secret. Her heart beat so loudly she wondered if he could hear.

Stuart's voice had grown dreamy, as if a thousand tender memories were trooping into his heart from the past and he was talking to himself.

"Why were her hands so moist and warm to the touch of the boy who held them, and why did they tremble so violently? Why did she turn so pale?--so pale and so suddenly, he thought she was about to faint? When again in life can one see this moment of the blossoming of both soul and body--this quivering readiness for the touch of the lover for whose coming she waits with such frank and honest eagerness?"

Again the little figure bent forward with breathless interest as she slowly asked:

"Oh, Jim, when did you see this?"

Stuart's head bent low and rested between his hands.

"I loved such a little girl once, dear----"

Harriet's face suddenly flushed with joy. It was too wonderful to be true, but it was true! And he had chosen this curious way to tell her.

Her voice sank to the softest whisper as she bent closer: