"I've been thinking about--Philip to-night."
"Poor girl. It was a year ago! To remember Phil best, we should be cheerful, but the subconscious sadness ran through all the evening's fun for you--and me, Ruth."
"Yes. Ralph, you only knew Phil a few years--never before he was married?"
"No, but he was one of those men who do not belong to time limit nor letters of introduction. His own knew him at a glance. There was no time to be lost with Phil. I've often noticed that faculty for deep and ready friendship among people who are here for only a short life. Others can afford to weigh and consider; they must garner quickly, and the Master seems to have equipped them."
"Ralph, was Phil a man that you felt you knew, really knew, I mean?"
"Yes; as to essentials. I never saw any one so positive as to the high lights. Honesty, truth, good faith, and a broad humanity. I always knew he had trouble that he did not talk about; he hinted that much to me once or twice, but the silence regarding it only intensified his own personality, of which he gave lavishly."
The woman bending toward the fire, shivered, and as her head sank lower, one shining braid of hair dropped forward, shielding her face.
"Ralph--I sometimes think the thing I have to do is the--hardest that ever woman had to do." The words were uttered with a moan that drove Drew into a silence more eloquent than any question he could have put. He realized that the woman beside him must tread the rough path of confession alone, and as she could. In his heart he prayed for strength to be beside her when all was done.
"If ever a sin saved, Philip's sin saved him, and yet he counted it as nothing at the last. He bade me do for him what he could not do for himself--I have never been able to begin until--to-night. He said--he had no right to friends nor the trust and favour of love. But he never was able to renounce them; I must strike them down one by one--now he is gone.
"I must do as he would have me do--I see the justice, if the end is to be obtained, but thank God, I, who loved him--can still love him--and he has been dead a year!"
The pain-racked eyes looked straight into Drew's with a sort of challenge. But Drew was too sincere a man to give, even to friendship, a blind comfort and assurance. He merely smiled at the troubled glance, and said quietly: