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326 "I have just come from your home," he said. "There is something I want to tell you. May I walk back there with you?"

"I can't see you to-day," she replied. "I am too tired to talk, or to listen."

"It will take but a minute. It is important."

"Then tell it to me here."

But she did not stop. She walked on and he walked with her.

"I have no right to interfere," he said, "save the right that any man has to try to prevent disaster to a friend."

"I understand. Go on. What is it you wish to say to me?"

"This—that you are wearing yourself out, body and mind, in a cause that is utterly unworthy of you. The sacrifice is not only deplorable, it is useless."

"You have told me that before. But I have been doing God's work among the poor, Philip, while you and those who believe as you do have hindered and crippled and made almost useless what might have been the most powerful instrumentality in the city for their relief."

He did not resent her criticism, nor did he make any effort to defend himself. His thought was only of her.

"I am not chiding you," he said, "for what you have done in the name of charity. You have been a good angel to those in distress. In everything—I say in everything—you have acted from the noblest of motives, with the purest of hearts."

"I have, Philip. Oh, I have! Believe me—in everything."

In her eagerness she stopped and turned toward him, and, beneath the thickness of her veil, he saw, by her face, that she was under the stress of some great emotion.

"Beyond the shadow of a doubt," he replied, as they walked on. "But you have been unwise; misguided.