hour everything concerning his friend's love for Anice Barholm.

Suddenly he paused in his career across the room.

"Grace," he said, "I cannot trust myself; but I can trust you, I cannot
be unselfish in this--you can. Tell me what I am to do--answer me
this question, though God knows, it would be a hard one for any man to
answer. Perhaps I ought not to ask it--perhaps I ought to have decision
enough to answer it myself without troubling you. But how can I? And you
who are so true to yourself and to me in other things, will be true in
this I know. This feeling is stronger than all else--so strong that I
have feared and failed to comprehend it. I had not even thought of it
until it came upon me with fearful force, and I am conscious that it has
not reached its height yet. It is not an ignoble pas' sion, I know. How
could a passion for such a creature be ignoble? And yet again, there
have been times when I have felt that perhaps it was best to struggle
against it. I am beset on every side, as I have said, and I appeal to
you. Ought love to be stronger than all else? I used to tell myself so,
before it came upon me--and now I can only wonder at myself and tremble
to find that I have grown weak."

God knows it was a hard question he had asked of the man who loved him;
but this man did not hesitate to answer it as freely as if he had had no
thought that he was signing the death-warrant of all hopes for himself.
Grace went to him and laid a hand upon his broad shoulder.

"Come, sit down and I will tell you," he said, with a pallid face.

Derrick obeyed his gentle touch with a faint smile.

"I am too fiery and tempestuous, and you want to cool me," he said. "You
are as gentle as a woman, Grace."

The Curate standing up before him, a slight, not at all heroic figure in
his well worn, almost threadbare garments, smiled in return.

"I want to answer your question," he said, "and my answer is this:
When a man loves a woman wholly, truly, purely, and to her highest
honor,--such a love is the highest and noblest thing in this world,
and nothing should lead to its sacrifice,--no ambition, no hope, no
friendship."

CHAPTER XXII - Master Landsell's Son

"I dunnot know what to mak' on her," Joan said to Anice, speaking of
Liz. "Sometimes she is i' sich sperrits that she's fairly flighty, an'
then agen, she's aw fretted an' crossed with ivvery-thing. Th' choild
seems to worrit her to death."

"That lass o' Lowrie's has