THE morning sun beat fiercely down on Fred Walton and his new friend as they trudged along the dusty road. The pangs of hunger had seized them, and no way seemed open to obtain food short of begging it at one of the farmhouses which they were passing, and that Fred shrank from doing.

“If I could have stopped in Atlanta long enough to have sold my watch we could have paid our way for awhile,” he told his companion, “but I thought we ought to be on the move.”

“Yes, of course,” the younger agreed, with a slow, doubtful look into the other’s face. “Will you tell me—I give you my word you can trust me,” he went on—“if you have any reason, except for my sake, in getting away from the city?”

“Yes, I have, Dick,” Walton replied. “I may as well admit it. I am in a pretty tight place. Things are done by telegraph these days, and I don’t feel entirely safe, even here in the country.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, Fred!” the boy declared. “You have been so good to me that it doesn’t look right for anybody to be running you down like a common—”

“Thief!” Walton supplied the word in a tone of bitterness. “That’s exactly what some would call it. But you mustn’t be afraid of me, Dick. I went wrong, and lost a good home and many friends by it. I’ve lost something else, too, Dick—some one else whom I once had as my own, but who is now out of my life forever.”

“You mean—you mean—a sweetheart?” ventured the boy, as he put out a sympathetic hand and touched the arm of his companion.

Walton nodded. He had averted his eyes, that his companion might not see the tears which blurred his sight, but no word escaped his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Dick Warren said, simply, and his hand tenderly clung to the dust-coated sleeve—“I’m sorry, Fred.”

“I wish you knew her, Dick,” Walton went on, reminiscently. “If you did, I reckon you’d pity your pal. Here I am, a tramp, an outcast in dirty clothing, and no money in my pocket. If you’d ever seen her, you’d never dream that such a girl could have actually cared for a man like me. I’ve got her photograph in my pocket. It is in an envelope. I have not looked at it once since I left her. I may never again on earth.”

“But why?” the boy asked, wonderingly. “It seems like it would be company for you, now that you and she are—parted.”

“She gave it to me in trust and confidence,” Walton answered, his dull gaze still averted. “She wouldn’t want me to have it now. I shall keep it—I simply can’t give it up; but I shall not insult her purity by looking at it. I must harden myself, and forget—forget thousands of things. You may see it if you wish.” Walton drew the envelope from his pocket and extended it to his companion. “I’ll walk ahead, and when you’ve looked at it put it back in the envelope.”

“All right; thank you, Fred.” The boy fell back a few steps, and with his eyes straight in front of him Walton trudged on stolidly. The boy gazed at the picture steadily for several minutes, and then caught up with his companion and returned the envelope. He was silent for a moment then he said, with a slight huskiness in his young voice:

“Would you like for me to say anything about her, Fred?”

“Yes, I think I should,” Walton responded, slowly, as he thrust the envelope back into his pocket. “Yes, Dick, I’d like to hear what you think of her.”

“She is so sweet and gentle looking—so good—so very, very pretty! Oh, Fred, I understand now how you feel! I don’t think I ever saw a face that I liked better. It may be because she is your—”

“Was!” Walton broke in. “Don’t forget that, Dick.”

“I think a girl like that, with a face like that, would forgive almost anything in the man she loved,” the boy went on, in a valiant effort at consolation.

“If she still loved him, perhaps; but she could no longer love him,” Walton sighed. “She belongs to a proud family, Dick, not one member of which was ever guilty of such conduct as mine. She would shudder at the sight of me, she would blush with shame for having cared for me. That’s why I came away. If I had not loved her, I’d have stayed and faced my punishment.” After this talk the two trudged on through the garish sunshine without exchanging a word for several miles. It was noon. They had come to the gate of a farmhouse which bore the look of prosperity, and they paused in the shade of a tree.

“We can’t go farther without eating,” the boy said. “You don’t like to beg, but I don’t care; I&............