Dick smiled and shook his head. "Nothing you could ever do would make me change. But tell me," he added; "you're not thinking of giving up your church work, are you?"
"Why do you ask?" said she quickly.
"You'll pardon me won't you, if I tell you. I can't help noticing that you are not so much at the meetings of the Society as you were; and that—well—you don't seem—somehow—to take the interest you did. And you have given up your class at the South Broadway Mission."
"How do you know that?"
"I asked Brother Cameron if there was any place for me out there, and he said, yes, that your class was without a teacher now."
"So you are to have my boys at the Mission. Oh, I am so glad." And her eyes filled. "Don't let them forget me altogether, Mr. Falkner."
"But won't you come back and teach them yourself?"
"No, no; you do not understand; I must give it up. But you'll do better than I anyway, because you can get closer to them. You understand that life so well."
"Yes," he said, very soberly. "I do understand that life very well indeed."
"Oh, forgive me, I didn't mean to pain you." She laid her hand timidly on his arm. "I admire you so much for what you have overcome, and that's what makes me say that you can do a great deal, now that you are through with it. You must forget those things that are behind, you know."