ndous purport of the moment, confidence,
tranquillity, all the varied qualities which combined to sustain the
equilibrium of his character, were swept aside as though they had never
been. The world held but one person, and that was Jean; if Jean failed
him, nothing was left.

At that moment the physical strain of long sojourn abroad showed itself
painfully in sunken cheek and pallid hue. In the light grey clothes,
which hung so loosely on his thin form, he looked like the ghost of a
man, a ghost with living eyes--glowing, burning eyes, aflame with love
and dread. He stood with hands clasped at his back, not daring a touch.

"Jean!" he said breathlessly, "I am a beggar at your gate, I am
starving, Jean, and I have nothing to offer you--nothing but myself and
my love!"

Afterwards Jean had many criticisms to make concerning the fashion of
Robert's avowal--criticisms at which she would make him blush when his
hair was grey; but at the moment she was conscious of one thing only--
that Robert was in torture and that she could ease him. With a smile
which was divine in its abandon she held out her hands towards him.

"But that's all I want," said Jean, trembling.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

They sat for an hour by the side of an old oak, the sunshine flickering
through the branches on the illumined loveliness of Jean's face, on
Robert's rapturous joy. Even to a cold, outside eye they would have
appeared an ideal couple: what wonder that to each the other seemed the
crowning miracle of the world! The perfect moment was theirs; the
ineffable content, the amazement of joy which God in His mercy
vouchsafes to all true lovers. The love lasts, but the glory wanes; of
necessity it must wane in a material world, but the memory of it can
never die. It lives to sweeten life, to be a memory of perfect union, a
foretaste of the life beyond!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

They talked in the tongue of angels, in such words as can never be
transcribed in print; they marvelled and soared, and then at last came
down to facts. A shadow flitted across Robert's face; his voice took an
anxious note.

"I am a poor man, Jean. Until now I have not cared, but I'm grieved for
your sake. I should like to have kept you like a queen, but I am poor,
and I fear shall never be otherwise. We shall have to live in a small
house with a couple of ser