She was sobbing as though her heart would break, sobbing wildly, convulsively, like the little child who in the night comes to its mother’s bed to tell of the black goblins that have been pursuing it.  Long before she had finished speaking—­and it took only a few heart-beats for that rush of words—­I had broken the power of the fascination that held me, had turned away my eyes, and tried not to listen.  For fear of breaking the spell, I did not dare cross the room to close Beulah’s door or to reach the outer door of my office, which was nearer hers than it was to my desk.  I waited—­through a silence, broken only by Beulah’s weeping, that seemed hour-long.  Then in Bob’s voice came one low sob of joy: 

“Beulah, Beulah, my Beulah!”

I realised that he had risen.  I rose too, thinking that now I could close the door.  But again I saw a picture that transfixed me.  Bob had taken Beulah by both shoulders and he held her off and looked into her eyes long and beseechingly.  Never before nor since have I seen upon human face that glorious joy which the old masters sought to get into the faces of their worshippers who, kneeling before Christ, tried to send to Him, through their eyes, their soul’s gratitude and love.  I stood as one enthralled.  Slowly and as reverently as the living lover touches the brow of his dead wife, Bob bent his head and kissed her forehead.  Again and again he drew her to him and implanted upon her brow and eyes and lips his kisses.  I could not stand the scene any longer.  I started to the corridor-door, and then, as though for the first time either had known I was within hearing, they turned and stared at me.  At last Bob gave a long deep sigh, then one of those reluctant laughs of happiness yet wet with sobs.

“Well, Jim, dear old Jim, where did you come from?  Like all eavesdroppers, you have heard no good of yourself.  Own up, Jim, you did not hear a word good or bad about yourself, for it is just coming back to me that we have been selfish, that we have left you entirely out of our business conference.”

We all laughed, and Beulah Sands, with her face a bloom of burning blushes, said:  “Mr. Randolph, we have not settled what it is best to do about father’s affairs.”

After a little we did begin to talk business, and finally agreed that Beulah should write her father, wording her letter as carefully as possible, to avoid all direct statements, but showing him that she had made but little headway on the work she had come North to accomplish.  Bob was a changed being now; so, too, was Beulah Sands.  Both discussed their hopes and fears with a frankness in strange contrast to their former manner.  But there was one point on which Bob showed he was holding back.  I finally put it to him bluntly:  “Bob, are you working out anything that looks like real relief for Miss Sands and her father?”

“I don’t know how to answer you, Jim.  I can only say I have some ideas, radical ones perhaps, but—­well, I am thinking along certain lines.”