wait till you see things calmly, at least. Taking your own life is not
a thing to decide on as you might decide on going to a ball. How do
you know that you will not be bitterly sorry to-morrow if you do that
to-night? It's throwing away the one chance a person has to make the
world better and happier. That's what you're here for--not to enjoy
yourself."

She put a quiet sentence, in that oddly buoyant voice, into the stream
of his words. "Still, you don't say I'd go to hell forever," she
commented.

"Is that your only thought?" he demanded indignantly. "Can't you think
of what's brave and worth while--of what's decent for a big thing like
a soul? A soul that's going on living to eternity--do you want to
blacken that at the start? Can't you forget your little moods and your
despair of the moment?"

"No, I can't." The roses bobbed as she shook her head. The man, in
his heart, knew how it was, and did not wonder. But he must somehow
stop this determination which he had--she said--helped to form. A
thought came to him; he hesitated a moment, and then broke out
impetuously: "Let me do this--let me write to you; I'm not saying
things straight. It's hard. I think I could write more clearly. And
it's unfair not to give me a hearing. Will you promise only this, not
to do it till you've read my letter?"

Slowly the youth, the indomitable brightness in the girl forged to the
front. She looked at him with the dawn of a smile in her eyes, and he
saw all at once, with a passing vision, that her eyes were very blue
and that her hair was bright and light--a face vivid and responsive.