"Yes, yes, to find you. Don't you see? We should have been here sooner, only the telegram was not delivered until after midnight, and I had to persuade Aunt Amice. She refused, until after I said I'd come anyway. But of course she doesn't know, even now. Oh, Tom! Tom!--to think you're over that dreadful attack and--"

"Attack?" he inquired.

"The one that started that night--through my fault--mine!"

"Your fault?" he repeated. "How on earth do you make that out?"

"I should have seen--understood! James had tried to explain; but I was overwrought. Not until you were going--But that is all past, dear! I've come to tell you that now you must let me help you. It is not right for you to fight alone--to refuse my aid, when I--when I--love you!"

"Jenny! You can't mean it? After that night--after what I did that night!"

"Yes," she whispered. "If you--if you'll forgive me."

"But--the drinking?"

"You can win! You proved it that night, when you crushed the glass. I no longer fear, Tom. All my doubt has gone. Even without my help I know that you--But I want to do my share, dear. If you're--you're willing, we'll be married, and--"

"Jenny!" He stood for a moment, overcome. Then the words burst from his deep chest: "Girl! Girl!--God! to think that I have that to tell you! Yes, it's true--I proved it that night--I won out that night! Do you hear, Jenny? I broke the curse! I proved it when I left you--went out into the night--after drinking all that whiskey--went down into the stockyards, past the worst saloons, all the joints. I went in and stood about, in all the odor--whiskey, beer--one after the other, I went in, and came out again, without having touched a drop. All the time I kept remembering that I had lost you; but--I knew I had found myself."

"Tom!"

"When I had made sure, I went to the freight yards, got into a fruit- car, and went to sleep. When I woke up, I was on the way to New Orleans. Been hoboing ever since."

"Oh!"

"Best thing for me. Put kinks into my body, but took 'em all out of my brain. About the drinking--it wasn't that night alone. I've kept testing myself every chance--even took a taste to make sure. Now I know. It's the simple truth, Jenny. I've won."

"My _man_!" she cried, and she came to him as he opened his arms.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Out of the Primitive, by Robert Ames Bennet