.
Talk about saints! There you stand in the very presence of death, and
you think only of us."

"I want to say a last word to you, Sadie, if you don't mind. I should
die so much happier. I have often wanted to speak to you, but I thought
that perhaps you would laugh, for you never took anything very
seriously, did you? That was quite natural of course with your high
spirits, but still it was very serious to me. But now I am really a
dead man, so it does not matter very much what I say."

"Oh don't, Mr. Stephens!" cried the girl.

"I won't, if it is very painful to you. As I said, it would make me die
happier, but I don't want to be selfish about it. If I thought it would
darken your life afterwards, or be a sad recollection to you, I would
not say another word."

"What did you wish to say?"

"It was only to tell you how I loved you. I always loved you. From the
first I was a different man when I was with you. But of course it was
absurd, I knew that well enough. I never said anything, but I tried not
to make myself ridiculous. But I just want you to know about it now
that it can't matter one way or the other. You'll understand that I
really do love you when I tell you that, if it were not that I knew you
were frightened and unhappy, these last two days in which we have been
always together would have been infinitely the happiest of my life."

The girl sat pale and silent, looking down with wondering eyes at his
upturned face. She did not know what to do or say in the solemn
presence of this love which burned so brightly under the shadow of
death. To her child's heart it seemed incomprehensible--and yet she
understood that it was sweet and beautiful also.

"I won't say any more," said he; "I can see that it only bothers you.
But I wanted you to know, and now you do know, so it is all right.
Thank you for listening so patiently and gently. Good-bye, little
Sadie! I can't put my hand up. Will you put yours down?"

She did so and Stephens kissed it. Then he turned and took his place
once more between Belmont and Fardet. In his whole life of struggle and
success he had never felt such a glow of quiet contentment as suffused
him at that instant when the grip of death was closing upon him.
There is no arguing about love. It is the innermost fact of life--the
one which obscures and changes all the others, the only one which is
absolutely satisfying and complete. Pain is pleasure, and want is
comf