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 "At least we haven't their elemental clairvoyance. The doctor is doubtless right in his flamboyant way, and we are right in our pitiful way. We can only try, I suppose, to be right at a higher pitch."

"By Jove," Keble suddenly exclaimed, with a retrospective fear, "it was a closer shave than we had any idea of. I wonder if Louise realized."

Miriam smiled bitterly. "You may be quite sure, my dear Keble, that she did. If you have been spared a great load of pain, you may take my word for it that it's Louise you have to thank."

Keble was pale. In his eyes was the look which Miriam had seen on another occasion, just before the birth of his son. "Then I do wish," he quietly said, "that my friends would do me the kindness to point out some of my most inexcusable limitations, instead of letting me walk through life in a fool's paradise."

Miriam was ready to retort that even such a wish reflected the amour propre that determined most of his acts, but she had been touched by the emotion in his eyes and voice,—an emotion which only one woman could inspire. "I think we're all trying desperately to learn the ABC's of life," she said.

She was unnerved by the self-abasement that had stolen into his expression. For the first time in her life she went close to him and took his hand in hers. "Don't mind if I've spoken like a preacher," she pleaded in a voice which she could control just long