"All would have been easy if you hadn't." "You mean," answered Joan quietly, "that if I had let your mother die and had married your father, that he and I would have loved each other to the end; that I should have helped him and encouraged him in all things, so that his success would have been certain.

Is that the argument ?" "Didn't you love him ?" asked the girl, staring.

"Wouldn't you have helped him ?" "I can't tell," answered Joan.

"I should have meant to.

Many men and women have loved, and have meant to help each other all their lives; and with the years have drifted asunder; coming even to be against one another.