Mrs. Marteen’s body stiffened; the color receded from her face, leaving it ashen.  Her great eyes dilated.

“Do you know why it is there?” he asked at length in a whisper.

“Yes,” she murmured.  “We have traveled the same road—­you and I. I understand.”

He took her hand and raised it to his lips.  “You don’t know all that this picture recalls to me—­and I hope you will never know; but you and I,” he said slowly, weighing his words, “are not of the breed of those who cry out with remorse.  We are of those who live differently.  That is the constant reminder of what was.  I do not want to forget.  I want to remember.  Every time the iron enters my soul I shall know the more keenly that I have at last a soul.”

Again they fell silent.

“According to the accepted code I suppose I should make a clean breast of it, even to Dorothy, and go into retirement,” she said at length.  “I have thought of that, too; but I cannot feel it.  I want to be active; to be able to use myself for betterment; make of myself an example of good and not of evil.  What I did was because of what I was.  I am that no longer, and my expression must be of the new thing that has become me—­a soul!” she said reverently.

“A soul,” he repeated.  “It has come to me, too.  And what is left to me of life has no place for regrets.  I have that which I must live up to—­I shall live up to it.”

“We have, indeed, traveled the same road; but you—­have led me.”  She looked at him with complete comprehension.

“We will travel the new road together,” he said finally, “hand in hand.”

THE END