"They come too late; but they would have been too late in any case," she
added. "Still, I am glad you said them."

She opened the door for him.

"I made a mistake," he urged humbly. "I understand better now. I never
had any schoolin'."

"Oh, it isn't that," she answered gently. "Goodbye."

Suddenly he turned. "You're right--it couldn't ever be," he said.
"You're--you're great. And I owe you my life still."

He stepped out into the biting air.

For a moment Pauline stood motionless in the middle of the room, her gaze
fixed upon the door which had just closed; then, with a wild gesture of
misery and despair, she threw herself upon the couch in a passionate
outburst of weeping. Sobs shook her from head to foot, and her hands,
clenched above her head, twitched convulsively.

Presently the door opened and her mother looked in eagerly. At what she
saw her face darkened and hardened for an instant, but then the girl's
utter abandonment of grief and agony convinced and conquered her.
Some glimmer of the true understanding of the problem which Pauline
represented got into her heart, and drove the sullen selfishness from
her face and eyes and mind. She came over heavily and, sinking upon her
knees, swept an arm around the girl's shoulder. She realised what had
happened, and probably this was the first time in her life that she had
ever come by instinct to a revelation of her daughter's mind, or of the