Alida was seated by a window with some of the mending in which she assisted, and, as usual, was apart by herself.  Watterly entered the large apartment quietly, and at first she did not observe him.  He had time to note that she was greatly dejected, and when she saw him she hastily wiped tears from her eyes.

"You are a good deal cast down, Alida," he said, watching her closely.

"I've reason to be.  I don't see any light ahead at all."

"Well, you know the old saying, 'It's darkest before day.'  I want you to come with me again.  I think I've found a chance for you."

She rose with alacrity and followed.  As soon as they were alone, he turned and looked her squarely in the face as he said gravely, "You have good common sense, haven't you?"

"I don't know, sir," she faltered, perplexed and troubled by the question.

"Well, you can understand this much, I suppose.  As superintendent of this house I have a responsible position, which I could easily lose if I allowed myself to be mixed up with anything wrong or improper.  To come right to the point, you don't know much about me and next to nothing of my friend Holcroft, but can't you see that even if I was a heartless, good-for-nothing fellow, it wouldn't be wise or safe for me to permit anything that wouldn't bear the light?"

"I think you are an honest man, sir.  It would be strange if I did not have confidence when you have judged me and treated me so kindly.  But, Mr. Watterly, although helpless and friendless, I must try to do what I think is best.  If I accepted Mr. Holcroft's position it might do him harm.  You know how quick the world is to misjudge.  It would seem to confirm everything that has been said against me," and the same painful flush again overspread her features.

"Well, Alida, all that you have to do is to listen patiently to my friend.  Whether you agree with his views or not, you will see that he is a good-hearted, honest man.  I want to prepare you for this talk by assuring you that I've known him since he was a boy, that he has lived all his life in this region and is known by many others, and that I wouldn't dare let him ask you to do anything wrong, even if I was bad enough."

"I'm sure, sir, you don't wish me any harm," she again faltered in deep perplexity.

"Indeed I don't.  I don't advise my friend's course; neither do I oppose it.  He's certainly old enough to act for himself.  I suppose I'm a rough counselor for a young woman, but since you appear to have so few friends I'm inclined to act as one.  Just you stand on the question of right and wrong, and dismiss from your mind all foolish notions of what people will say.  As a rule, all the people in the world can't do as much for us as somebody in particular.  Now you go in the parlor and listen like a sensible woman.  I'll be reading the paper, and the girl will be clearing off the table in the next room here."

Puzzled and trembling, Alida entered the apartment where Holcroft was seated.  She was so embarrassed that she could not lift her eyes to him.

"Please sit down," he said gravely, "and don't be troubled, much less frightened.  You are just as free to act as ever you were in your life."

She sat down near the door and compelled herself to look at him, for she felt instinctively that she might gather more from the expression of his face than from his words.

"Alida Armstrong is your name, Mr. Watterly tells me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Alida, I want to have a plain business talk with you.  That's nothing to be nervous and worried about, you know.  As I told you, I've heard your story.  It has made me sorry for you instead of setting me against you.  It has made me respect you as a right-minded woman, and I shall give you good proof that my words are true.  At the same time, I shan't make any false pretenses to what isn't true and couldn't be true.  Since I've heard your story, it's only fair you should hear mine, and I ought to tell it first."

He went over the past very briefly until he came to the death of his wife.  There was simple and homely pathos in the few sentences with which he referred to this event.  Then more fully he enlarged upon his efforts and failure to keep house with hired help.  Unconsciously, he had taken the best method to enlist her sympathy.  The secluded cottage and hillside farm became realities to her fancy.  She saw how the man's heart clung to his home, and his effort to keep it touched her deeply.

"Oh!" she thought, "I do wish there was some way for me to go there.  The loneliness of the place which drove others away is the chief attraction for me.  Then it would be pleasant to work for such a man and make his home comfortable for him.  It's plain from his words and looks that he's as honest and straightforward as the day is long.  He only wants to keep his home and make his living in peace."

As he had talked her nervous embarrassment passed away, and the deep sense of her own need was pressing upon her again.  She saw that he also was in great need.  His business talk was revealing deep trouble and perplexity.  With the quick intuitions of a woman, her mind went far beyond his brief sentences and saw all the difficulties of his lot.  His feeling reference to the loss of his wife proved that he was not a coarse-natured man.  As he spoke so plainly of his life during the past year, her mind was insensibly abstracted from everything but his want and hers, and she thought his farmhouse afforded just the secluded refuge she craved.  As he drew near the end of his story and hesitated in visible embarrassment, she mustered courage to say timidly, "Would you permit a suggestion from me?"

"Why, certainly."

"You have said, sir, that your business and means would not allow you to keep two in help, and as you have been speaking I have tried to think of some way.  The fact that your house is so lonely is just the reason why I should like to work in it.  As you can understand, I have no wish to meet strangers.  Now, sir, I am willing to work for very little; I should be glad to find such a quiet refuge for simply my board and clothes, and I would do my very best and try to learn what I did not know.  It seems to me that if I worked for so little you might think you could afford to hire some elderly woman also?" and she looked at him in the eager hope that he would accept her proposition.

He shook his head as he replied, "I don't know of any such person.  I took the best one in this house, and you know how she turned out."

"Perhaps Mr. Watterly may know of someone else," she faltered.  She was now deeply troubled and perplexed again, supposing that he was about to renew his first proposition that she should be his only help.

"If Mr. Watterly did know of anyone I would make the trial, but he does not.  Your offer is very considerate and reasonable, but--" and he hesitated again, scarcely knowing how to go on.

"I am sorry, sir," she said, rising, as if to end the interview.

"Stay," he said, "you do not understand me yet.  Of course I should not make you the same offer that I did at first, after seeing your feeling about it, and I respect you all the more because you so respect yourself.  What I had in mind was to give you my name, and it's an honest name.  If we were married it would be perfectly proper for you to go with me, and no one could say a word against either of us."

"Oh!" she gasped, in strong agitation and surprise.

"Now don't be so taken aback.  It's just as easy for you to refuse as it is to speak, but listen first.  What seems strange and unexpected may be the most sensible thing for us both.  You have your side of the case to think of just as truly as I have mine; and I'm not forgetting, and I don't ask you to forget, that I'm still talking business.  You and I have both been through too much trouble and loss to say any silly nonsense to each other.  You've heard my story, yet I'm almost a stranger to you as you are to me.  We'd both have to take considerable on trust.  Yet I know I'm honest and well-meaning, and I believe you are.  Now look at it.  Here we are, both much alone in the world--both wishing to live a retired, quiet life.  I don't care a rap for what people say as long as I'm doing right, and in this case they'd have nothing to say.  It's our own business.  I don't see as people will ever do much for you, and a good many would impose on you and expect you to work beyond your strength.  They might not be very kind or considerate, either.  I suppose you've thought of this?"

"Yes," she replied with bowed head. "I should meet coldness, probably harshness and scorn."

"Well, you'd never meet anything of the kind in my house.  I would treat you with respect and kindness.  At the same time, I'm not going to mislead you by a word.  You shall have a chance to decide in view of the whole truth.  My friend, Mr. Watterly, has asked me more'n once, 'Why don't you marry again?'  I told him I had been married once, and that I couldn't go before a minister and promise the same things over again when they wasn't true.  I can't make to you any promises or say any words that are not true, and I don't ask or expect you to do what I can't do.  But it has seemed to me that our condition was out of the common lot--that we could take each other for just what we might be to each other and no more.  You would be my wife in name, and I do not ask you to be my wife in more than name.  You would thus secure a good home and the care and protection of one who would be kind to you, and I would secure a housekeeper--one that would stay with me and make my interests hers.  It would be a fair, square arrangement between ourselves, and nobody else's business.  By taking this course, we don't do any wrong to our feelings or have to say or promise anything that isn't true."

"Yet I can't help saying, sir," she replied, in strong, yet repressed agitation, "that your words sound very strange; and it seems stran............