"You once told me, Mrs. Everleigh, that 'there was still work for me to do here,' and I have been trying to do it," John returned, with an answering smile.
"I feel confident you have; but"—referring to the card in her hand—"how is it that you have sent me this—that you now call yourself John Hungerford?"
John explained that at the time he first met her, when he was so low down in the world, he had dropped his last name, using his middle one instead, to avoid recognition.
"You do not mean to tell me that you are John Hungerford, the artist, who has been exhibiting at the Excelsior Art Club?" the lady inquired, with sudden alertness.
"Yes—the same," he quietly replied.
"Well, I congratulate you!" she earnestly returned. "I have seen your pictures, but, of course, did not dream that I knew the artist. You certainly have been working to some purpose. But how was it that you ran away from us so unceremoniously five years ago?"
"That must have seemed rather ungrateful of me, I am compelled to admit," said the gentleman, with a deprecatory smile. "But I had already been the recipient of too many favors; I felt I must begin to stand alone—I had to prove myself—so I suddenly cut my cables, and launched out into the deep."
"We all have to stand alone in the sifting process," returned his companion. "We all have to prove ourselves, and I believed that you would make good; but I would have been glad of some tidings from you now and then."
"Thank you; and it is very gratifying to know that you had that confidence in me," said John, with evident emotion. "I feel, however, that I owe much to you for the measure of success I have attained, for you taught me something of what life and its individual responsibilities mean. But for your and H—Mrs. Ford's unparalleled kindness to me in my darkest hour, I shrink from the thought of what might have been the alternative."
Mrs. Everleigh shot a quick glance at him as he made the slip on Helen's name; then she gently observed, with her old winning smile: