When Nan's radiant figure appeared in the doorway, her bare arm extended, her lips parted in a tender smile, Stuart knew that his face was red. The fact that he knew it increased his confusion until the whole room became a blur. His feet refused to move, and he stood staring at the approaching vision as if in a trance.

Her hand touched his. The shock was sobering; he remembered himself and smiled.

"What a long, long time, Jim!"

"A thousand years--I think, Nan," he stammered.

"Nine hundred to be exact, sir, but better late than never. I began to think your stubbornness would postpone this call until the next world."

"And we may not land at the same place on the other side?"

"A compliment or an insult?"

"I don't know, do you?"

He was laughing quietly now, his nerves stronger by the tension of the challenge of her evident gaiety.

She smiled a gracious forgiveness of his dubious answer.

"Mr. Bivens was detained down town on business. I am awfully sorry he's not here to join in my welcome."

"Well, I'm not."

He was looking steadily at her with curious concentration.

She answered with a flash from her dark eyes and critically looked him over.

"Well?" he asked.

"I'm awfully disappointed."

"Why?"

"My vanity is hurt. I expected to find you, after nine years, with deep lines of suffering written on your face. You are better looking than ever. The few gray hairs about your temples are extremely becoming.

Your honours have given you a new repose, a dignity and reserve power I couldn't conceive when I saw you battered by that mob."

"Allow me to return the compliment by saying that you are even a more startling disappointment to me. I was sure that I should find you broken."

"And you don't?"

Stuart smiled.

"I'd as well confess it frankly. You are far more beautiful than ever."

The woman softly laughed.

"You see no change?"

"The only changes I see merely add to your power: the worldly wisdom which marriage writes on every woman's face, a new strength, a warmth and fascination and a conscious joy at which I wonder and rage."

"Why wonder and rage?"

She drew him gently to a seat by her side, leaned forward and gazed smilingly at him.

Stuart was silent a moment and turned suddenly on her.

"Because Nan, when I look into your face to-night and see its joy, I can't help thinking such happiness is a crime. I saw joy like that once on the face of an Italian I defended and acquitted of murder. I believed him innocent but when he was free he confessed to me his guilt, confessed with such joy that I sprang on him and choked him into silence."

"And you think of me as a murderess, Jim?"

"No, no, my dear little playmate, but when I see you to-night in all this splendour so insolently happy----"

Nan sprang to her feet laughing.

"You are delicious to-night, Jim, and I'm so glad you are here. Come into the art gallery. It will take you days to see it; we'll just peep in to-night."

He followed her into a stately room packed with masterpieces of art; gleaming marbles and sombre bronze in groups of bewildering beauty, with every inch of wall-space crowded with canvases in massive gold frames glowing with the soft radiance of concealed electric lights.

Stuart gazed a moment in rapture.

"You must spend days here, Jim. Now honestly, with all your high-browed ideals, wouldn't you like to own this?"

"I wouldn't dare."

"Dare?"

"No. Not if I had the wealth of Croesus."

"Why not?"

"It's a crime to rob the world of these masterpieces of genius. They should be the free inheritance and inspiration of all the children of men. The humblest child of the street should own them because he is human. The man who has the power to buy them, of all men, should give to the people whose lives and toil gave him his power."

Nan gazed at Stuart in vague bewilderment and then a mischievous smile crept into the corners of her mouth.

"You're trying to throw dust in my eyes, but I can tell you what you are really thinking. Would you like to hear?"

"Very much."

"You are really wondering why the wicked prosper?"

The man remained silent while a look of deep seriousness overspread his face.

"Confess!" Nan insisted. "Am I not right?"

"Absolutely wrong," he replied slowly. "Why the wicked prosper has never worried me in the least. The first big religious idea I ever got hold of was that this is the best possible world God could have created--because it's free. Man must choose, otherwise his deeds have no meaning. A deed of mine is good merely because I have the power to do its opposite if I choose. In this free world step by step I can rise or fall through suffering and choosing."

"Oh, Jim," Nan broke in softly, "I've made you suffer horribly. You have the right to be hard and bitter."

"But I'm not, Nan," was the quiet answer. "I've been made generous and warm and tender by disappointment. Through the gates of pain I've entered into fellowship with my fellow-men, the humblest and the greatest. This sense of kinship has given me a larger vision. I've learned to love all sentient things. I've made friends with all sorts and conditions of men, the rich, the poor, the good, the bad. You have taught me the greatest secret of life."