Miss Bentley knew well enough that all was wrong with me. I mentioned
my unhappy marriage and told her all about you, but I said nothing
about the children."

"Why should you?" asked Letty, although her mind had leaped to the
reason already.

"Well, I was a poor patient in one of the cheapest rooms; broken in
health, without any present means of support. I wanted to stand well
with her, she had been so good to me, and I thought if she knew about
the twins she wouldn't believe I could ever make a living for three."

"Still less for _four_!" put in Letty, with an irrepressible note of
teasing in her tone.

She had broken the ice. Like a torrent set free, David dashed into the
story of the last two months and Ruth Bentley's wonderful influence.
How she had recreated him within as well as without. How she was the
best and noblest of women, willing to take a pauper by the hand and
brace him up for a new battle with life.

"Strength appeals to me," confessed David. "Perhaps it's because I am
weak; for I'm afraid I am, a little!"

"Be careful, Davy! Eva was strong!"

David shuddered. He remembered a strength that lashed and buffeted and
struck and overpowered.

"Ruth is different," he said. "'Out of the strong came forth