"and do not rise, until I have left the
house. And if ever these moments come back to you, Lady Ingleby,
remember, the whole blame was mine.... Hush, I tell you; hush! And will
you loose my hands?"

But Myra clung to those big hands, laughing, and weeping, and striving to
speak.

"Oh, Jim--my Jim!--you can't leave me to climb alone, because I am all
your own, and free to be yours and no other man's, and together, thank
God, we can stand on the cliff-top where His hand has led us.
Dearest--Jim, dearest--don't pull away from me, because I must cling on,
until you have read these telegrams. Oh, Jim, read them quickly! ... Sir
Deryck Brand brought them down from town this afternoon. And oh, forgive
me that I did not tell you at once.... I wanted you to prove yourself,
what I knew you to be, faithful, loyal, honourable, brave, the man of all
men whom I trust; the man who will never fail me in the upward climb,
until we stand together beneath the blue on the heights of God's eternal
hills.... Oh, Jim----"

Her voice faltered into silence; for Jim Airth knelt at her feet, his
head in her lap, his arms flung around her, and he was sobbing as only a
strong man can sob, when his heart has been strained to breaking point,
and sudden relief has come.

Myra laid her hands, gently, upon the roughness of his hair. Thus they
stayed long, without speaking or moving.

And in those sacred minutes Myra learned the lesson which ten years of
wedded life had failed to teach: that in the strongest man there is,
sometimes, the eternal child--eager, masterful, dependent, full of
needs; and that, in every woman's love there must therefore be an
element of the eternal mother--tender, understanding, patient; wise, yet
self-surrendering; able to bear; ready to forgive; her strength made
perfect in weakness.

At length Jim Airth lifted his head.

The last beams of the setting sun, entering through the western window,
illumined, with a ray of golden glory, the lovely face above him. But he
saw on it a radiance more bright than the reflected glory of any earthly
sunset.

"Myra?" he said, awe and wonder in his voice. "Myra? What is it?"

And clasping her hands about his neck as he knelt before her, she drew
his head to her breast, and answered:

"I have learnt a lesson, my beloved; a lesson only you could teach. And I
am very happy and thankful, Jim; because I know, that at last, I--even
I--am ready for wifehood."

CHAPTER XXVI

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