"I am at your service," said Dennis, stepping forward promptly.
"You are a gentleman, sir," said the speaker, impressed with the fact by Dennis's bearing, though his hat and coat were gone; "I need laborers who can handle the pick and shovel."
"I will work for less, then, till I can handle these tools as well as a laborer. There is no reason why I should eat the bread of charity a day longer, especially when so many need it more than I."
"I said you were a gentleman; I now say you are a man, and that to me means a great deal more," said the energetic stranger. "You shall have two dollars a day with the rest."
He turned to Christine and said, almost proudly, "The supper you have to-night shall be yours also."
"That is," she replied, with a smile, "I shall live on your charity instead of that of some one else."
His face grew sad at once, but he answered, as he went away, "I could not give you charity, Miss Ludolph."
Christine saw that she had pained him, and was much vexed with herself. But his remark added to the hope and almost belief that she still held her old place in his heart, and she resolved to make amends in the evening for her unlucky speech.
With a smile she said to herself: "If he only knew that I would prefer the coarsest, scantiest fare provided by him to the most costly banquet, he would not have gone away with that long face. How rich life would be if I could commence it with him, and we struggle up together! Oh, Heaven, grant," she sighed, looking earnestly upward, "that through these wonderful, terrible changes, I may climb the mountain at his side, as he so graphically portrayed it in his picture!"
Mrs. Leonard still slept, and her husband in an agony of anxiety watched at her side. At last, a little before midday, she opened her eyes and said, in her natural tone: "Why, John, I must have greatly overslept. Where am I?" and then, as her husband fairly sobbed for joy, she started up and said, hurriedly: "What is the matter? What has happened?"