“But——­” for a moment a beaten terror rose in Raymond’s eyes.

Joan nodded bravely to him.

“You and I, Ken, must never give fear a chance.  Once we know, we must not turn back.”

She stood up, looking tall and commanding.

Raymond rose also and took her hands.

“You’re great, Joan,” he said, “simply great.  You understand—­though how you do, the Lord only knows.

“Joan!” Raymond flung out the question that was tormenting him.  “Joan, why didn’t we—­care the other way?”

“I think,” Joan looked ancient, but pathetically young, “I think men and women don’t, when they understand too well.  And the line in our hands explains that, perhaps,” she smiled wanly.  “You see, Miss Jones and Mr. Black are—­paying!”

“Joan, go now, dear.  Others might not understand.”  Raymond at that moment grimly shut the door on his one playtime!

“And you—­would hate to have them misunderstand about me—­for Nancy’s sake?”

“No, Joan, for your own.  You’re too big and fine—­to have any more hurting things knock you.  May I kiss—­you good-night?”

For a moment something in Joan shrank, then she raised her face.

“Yes.  Good-night—­brother Ken.”

For another moment they stood silent.  Then: 

“What was it that made you so hard at dinner, Joan, and makes you so sweet now?”

“Ken, I thought that you—­had not tried to find out about me—­after that night!”

“Did the mere going back really matter?”

“It meant everything, Ken.”

“How?”

“Oh! can you not understand?  If you had just—­not cared I would have been afraid to-night for Nancy!  Ken, I believe you went back to pay for all our folly—­had I been willing to accept; had I—­cared in the way—­you suspected.”

“Yes, Joan.  I would have.”  Raymond said this solemnly.  “That’s what I went for.”

“And you should not have paid!  Girls—­must not—­let others pay more than is owed—­I’ve learned that, Ken.  But it was the going back that made it—­right for you to—­go on.  Ken, for Nancy’s dear sake I am glad it was—­you and I!”

“For that I thank God!” Again Raymond bent his head.  This time his lips fell on the open palms of the hands with those lines in them—­lines like his own!

“Some day you are going to be happy, Joan.”

“I am happy now.  I was never happy, really, before.  You see, I was always looking for myself in the past; now I think I have found myself—­rather a dilapidated self, but mine own.  It’s going to be very interesting, this getting acquainted, and”—­here Joan was thinking of the last day in the hospital and the rooms opening to the sweet singer—­“and I’m going to touch and feel life instead of merely looking out through my own small door.  And so—­good-night.”

She was gone as she had come—­not stealthily, but noiselessly; not afraid, but cautious.