"I only have a wish. It is not great enough to be called an ambition."
"Will you tell me what it is?"
"Not now. I'm afraid I have let you talk too much as it is."
"No. It has done me good. What a happy face you have!"
"I am not unhappy."
"May you always remain so! Good-bye, then, since you must go. And thank you once more."
He held out his hand feebly, with a wan smile.
"And now—now, you will be brave, will you not? Try once more. Let me post your next poem for you. I may bring you luck."
"As you brought me light. I should be a churl to refuse you, to whom I owe my life. You shall post a poem for me. I have a penny in my pocket, the last, until I get another job. It shall buy a stamp."
Then she went away, shutting Paul into loneliness once more. But she had also left a hope behind. He was a braver man for the contact of that sister-life, his fellow-toiler in the Great City. Her courage shamed him. She, too, was poor and lonely, but not a coward. He would be one no longer. Because she had saved his life, he could never again think meanly of it, nor lightly fling it away. At last his heart could join in her sunset song:—