“Perhaps, I am not of the stuff that conquerors are made,” he went on. “Perhaps, if I were, I should be thinking differently. It comes to me sometimes that I may be one of those intended only to prepare the way—that for me there may be only the endless struggle. I may have to face unpopularity, abuse, failure. She won’t mind.” “Because you won’t be there,” he answered, “and without you I can’t do it. You think I’m always like I am to-night, bragging, confident. So I am when you are with me. You give me back my strength. The plans and hopes and dreams that were slipping from me come crowding round me, laughing and holding out their hands. They are like the children. They need two to care for them. I want to talk about them to someone who understands them and loves them, as I do. I want to feel they are dear to someone else, as well as to myself: that I must work for them for her sake, as well as for my own. I want someone to help me to bring them up.”!

Joan held our her hand for the letter. “I was afraid he had forgotten it,” she answered, with a smile. It seemed to her that it was she that they were laughing at, pointing her out to one another, jeering at her, reviling her, threatening her.

Mr. Halliday, who had been supporting the weight of his body upon his right leg, transferred the burden to his left. “It’s many a year, I am afraid, to the final chapter,” thought their author. “So am I,” he said. “Tell your children what you have seen. Tell other women.”