.

"By that time I had learned, beyond all disputing, that I was too dull
and stupid ever to win your love. I only cared for money that it might
enable me to make you happy; and if you could be happier without me than
with me, who was I that I should complain? At any rate, it was given to
me to insure your happiness; and that was enough for me. And you said
that I didn't care what became of you, as long as I laid up for myself a
nice little nest-egg in heaven! Sweetheart, I think you did me an
injustice. So be happy, my dearest, with the Willows and the Osierfield
and all the dear old things which you and I have loved so well; and
remember that you must never pity me. I wanted you to be happy more than
I wanted anything else in the world, and no man is to be pitied who has
succeeded in getting what he wanted most.

"Yours, my darling, for time and eternity,
"CHRISTOPHER FARRINGDON."

Then at last Elisabeth's eyes were opened, and for the first time in her
life she saw clearly. So Christopher had loved her all along; she knew
the truth at last, and with it she also knew that she had always loved
him; that throughout her life's story there never had been--never could
be--any man but Christopher. Until he told her that he loved her, her
love for him had been a fountain sealed; but at his word it became a
well of living water, flooding her whole soul and turning the desert of
her life into a garden.

At first she was overpowered with the joy of it; she was upheld by that
strange feeling of exaltation which comes to all of us when we realize
for a moment our immortality, and feel that even death itself is
powerless to hurt us. Christopher was dying, but what did that signify?
He loved her--that was the only thing that really mattered--and they
would have the whole of eternity in which to tell their love. For the
second time in her life she came face to face with the fact that there
was a stronger Will than her own guiding and ruling her; that, in spite
of all her power and ability and self-reliance, the best things in her
life were not of herself but were from outside. As long ago in St.
Peter's Church she had learned that religion was God's Voice calling to
her, she now learned that love was Christopher's voice calling to her;
and that her own strength and cleverness, of which she had been so
proud, counted for less than nothing. To her who longed to give, was
given; she who desired to love, was be