good.  He thought of the sacrifices he had made for it—­not begrudgingly, but with a generous thankfulness that he had been permitted to pay the cost—­thought of the sleepless nights, the neglected work, the nervous exhaustion which had followed on the broken laws of health.  At the moment he regretted none of these things, because the end, which he already saw foreshadowed in his mental vision, seemed to him to be only the crowning of his last few weeks.  Even the bodily and moral redemption of Connie appeared no longer difficult in the illumination of his mood; for his compassion, in absorbing all that was vital in his nature, seemed possessed suddenly of the effectiveness of a dynamic force.

“Already she is better,” he thought, hopefully; “I see it in her face—­in her hands even, and when she is entirely cured the craving for excitement will leave her and we shall be at peace again.  Peace will be very like happiness,” he said to himself, and then, with the framing of the sentence, he stopped in his walk and smiled.  “Peace is happiness,” he added after a moment, “for certainly pleasure is not.”  With the words he remembered the bitter misery of Connie who had lived for joy alone—­the utter disenchantment of Arnold Kemper, who had made gratified impulse the fulfilling of his law of life.  Back and forth swung the oscillation between fugitive desire and outward possession—­between the craving of emptiness and the satiety of fulfilment—­and yet where was the happiness of those who lived for happiness alone?  Where was even the mere animal contentment?  “Is it only when one says to Fate ’take this—­and this as well—­take everything and leave me nothing.  I can do without’—­that one really comes into the fulness of one’s inheritance of joy?  Was this what Christ meant when he said to His disciples ’Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you?’ In renunciation was there, after all, not the loss of one’s individual self, but the gain of an abundance of life.”

The afternoon passed almost before he was aware of it, and when he finished his work and drew on his overcoat, he saw, as he glanced through his office window, that it was already dusk.  As he reached the entrance to the elevator, he found Perry Bridewell awaiting him inside, and he kept, with an effort, his too evident surprise from showing in his face.

“Why, this is a treat that doesn’t happen often!” he exclaimed with heartiness.

“I was passing and found you were still here, so I dropped in to walk up with you,” explained Perry, but there was a note in his voice which caused the other to glance at him quickly with a start.

“Are you ill, old man?” asked Adams, for Perry appeared at his first look to have gone deadly white.  “Is there anything that I can do?  Would you like to come up and talk things over?”

Perry shook his head with a smile which cast a sickly light over his large, handsome face.  “Oh, I’m perfectly well,” he responded, “I need to stretch my legs a bit, that’s all.”