tainly never spared the rod as far
as I was concerned."

"But now I see that I was wrong; I understand that it was because you
cared so much for abstract right, that you were able to care so much
for me; a lower nature would have given me a lower love; and if only we
could go through it all again, I should want you to go to Australia
after George Farringdon's son."

Christopher's thin fingers wandered over Elisabeth's hair; and as they
did so he remembered, with tender amusement, how often he had comforted
her on account of her dark locks. Now one or two gray hairs were
beginning to show through the brown ones, and it struck him with a pang
that he would no longer be here to comfort her on account of those; for
he knew that Elisabeth was the type of woman who would require
consolation on that score, and that he was the man who could effectually
have administered it.

"I can see now," Elisabeth went on, "how much more important it is what
a man is than what a man says, though I used to think that words were
everything, and that people didn't feel what they didn't talk about. You
used to disappoint me because you said so little; but, all the same,
your character influenced me without my knowing it; and whatever good
there is in me, comes from my having known you and seen you live up to
your own ideals. People wonder that worldly things attract me so little,
and that my successes haven't turned my head; so they would have done,
probably, if I had never met you; but having once seen in you what the
ideal life is, I couldn't help despising lower things, though I tried my
hardest not to despise them. Nobody who had once been with you, and
looked even for a minute at life through your eyes, could ever care
again for anything that was mean or sordid or paltry. Darling, don't you
understand that my knowing you made me better than I tried to
be--better even than I wanted to be; and that all my life I shall be a
truer woman because of you?"

But by that time the stupendous effort which Christopher had made for
Elisabeth's sake had exhausted itself, and he fell back upon his
pillows, white to the lips, and too weak to say another word. Yet not
even the great Shadow could cloud the love that shone in his eyes, as he
looked at Elisabeth's eager face, and listened to the voice for which
his soul had hungered so long. The sight of his weakness brought her
down to earth again more effectually than any words could have done; and
wit