'How could you? I only knew to-day myself.'

'I have eyes.' She flushed again.

'Do you mean that people--' she began anxiously.

'No; I am not "people." I have eyes, and my eyes have been opened.'

'Opened?'

'Yes, by love.'

Then I told her openly how, weeks ago, I struggled with my heart and
mastered it, for I saw it was vain to love her, because she loved a
better man who loved her in return. She looked at me shyly and said--

'I am sorry.'

'Don't worry,' I said cheerfully. 'I didn't break my heart, you know; I
stopped it in time.'

'Oh!' she said, slightly disappointed; then her lips began to twitch,
and she went off into a fit of hysterical laughter.

'Forgive me,' she said humbly; 'but you speak as if it had been a
fever.'

'Fever is nothing to it,' I said solemnly. 'It was a near thing.' At
which she went off again. I was glad to see her laugh. It gave me time
to recover my equilibrium, and it relieved her intense emotional strain.
So I rattled on some nonsense about Craig and myself till I saw she was
giving no heed, but thinking her own thoughts: and what these were it
was not hard to guess.

Suddenly she broke in upon my talk--

'He will tell me that I must go from him.'

'I hope he is no such fool,' I said emphatically and somewhat rudely,
I fear; for I confess I was impatient with the very possibility of
separation for these two, to whom love meant so much. Some people take
this sort of thing easily and some not so easily; but love for a woman
like this comes once only to a man, and then he carries it with him
through the length of his life, and warms his heart with it in death.
And when a man smiles or sneers at such love as this, I pity him, and
say no word, for my speech would be in an unknown tongue. So my
heart was sore as I sat looking up at this woman who stood before me,
overflowing with the joy of her new love, and dully conscious of the
coming pain. But I soon found it was vain to urge my opinion that she
should remain and share the work and life of the man she loved. She only
answered--

'You will help him all you can, for it will hurt him to have me go.'

The quiver in her voice took out all the anger from my heart, and before
I knew I had pledged myself to do all I could to help him.

But when I came upon him that night, sitting in the light of his fire,
I saw he must be let alone. Some battles we fight side by side, with
comrades cheering us and being cheered to victory;