here are strange things in diplomacy," said Father Murray. "And
stranger things in Sihasset when the town constable has so much interest
in your taking of tea at Killimaga. If you had turned around a moment
ago, you would have seen our constable's coattails disappearing behind
the bushes on our right."

CHAPTER V

WITH EMPTY HANDS

In the long after years Mark Griffin used to wonder at the strange way
in which love for Ruth Atheson entered his life. Mark always owned
that, somehow, this love seemed sent for his salvation. It filled his
life, but only as the air fills a vacuum; so it was, consequently,
nothing that prevented other interests from living with it. It aroused
him to greater ambition. The long-neglected creative power moved
without Mark's knowing why. His pen wrote down his thoughts, and he no
longer destroyed what he committed to paper. It now seemed a crime to
destroy what had cost him only a pleasure to produce. The world had
suddenly become beautiful. No longer did Japan and Siberia call to
him. He had no new plans, but he knew that they were forming, slowly,
but with finality and authority.

Yet Mark's love was never spoken. It was just understood. Many times
he had determined to speak, and just as many times did it seem quite
unnecessary. He felt that Ruth understood, for one day, when an avowal
trembled on his lips, she had broken it off unspoken by gently calling
him "Mark," her face suffused the while with an oddly tender light that
was in itself an answer. After that it was always "Ruth" and "Mark."
Father Murray also seemed to understand; with him, too, it was "Ruth"
and "Mark." After one week of that glorious September, Mark was at
Killimaga daily; and when October came and had almost passed, without a
word of affection being spoken between them, Ruth and Mark came to know
that some day it would be spoken, quite as naturally as she had uttered
his Christian name for the first time. When Mark thought of his love,
he thought also of his mother. He seemed to see her smile as if it
quite pleased her; and he rejoiced that he could believe she knew, and
saw that it was good.

"I love many things in men," said Father Murray one day as he and Mark
watched the waves dashing against the bluff. "I love generosity and
strength, truthfulness and mercy; but, most of all, I love cleanness.
The world is losing it, and the world will die from the loss. The
chief aid to my faith is t