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 begin again. I've enough money to take me there. . . . I'll manage after that. . . . Besides, there is Lily. . . . She promised to help me when the time came. . . . The time has come. . . . I can't turn back."

Fergus listened in silence, moved perhaps by the new dignity that had come to her, a dignity touched with bitterness. She was beautiful too in a new fashion, more placid, more serene.

"You must be good to Ma," she continued. "She'll hate my running away, but I've got to go. She's a wonderful woman. She's the one who has sacrificed everything. She's always done it . . . for all of us. I couldn't go if I didn't know that you're the one she loves best of all. You're the one she worships. She loved you enough to let you go. I had to run away. You know it, Fergus, as well as I. You must be good to her. If anything happened to you, it would kill her. You mustn't disappoint her. One day we must all make her proud of us. I mean to do it, and then when I'm rich, when I'm successful, I can reward her." She paused for a moment and then added. "You see, she loves you best because you're so like Pa. You're the way he used to be when she fell in love with him."

The boy's face took on an unaccustomed gravity. He rose and looked out of the window over the beloved and magical city. "I'll do my best," he said presently. "I'll do my best. . . . She's a wonderful woman." (Yet neither of them would turn back now.)

In the room there was no sound for a long time save the ticking of the clock, wrapped now in paper to be carted away. At last he turned and said, "But you're going to Lily. . . . Ma will hate that."

"I know she will. . . . She's always been afraid of Lily. She needn't worry though. I can take care of myself. I imagine nothing very serious can ever happen to me again."

It was Lily again, always Lily who was concerned in the whole course of Ellen's destiny. Yet Ellen never knew how great a part she had played for she never knew, of course, that if