but there are fights
we may not share, and these are deadly fights where lives are lost and
won. So I could only lay my hand upon his shoulder without a word. He
looked up quickly, read my face, and said, with a groan--

'You know?'

'I could not help it. But why groan?'

'She will think it right to go,' he said despairingly.

'Then you must think for her; you must bring some common-sense to bear
upon the question.'

'I cannot see clearly yet,' he said; 'the light will come.'

'May I show you how I see it?' I asked.

'Go on,' he said.

For an hour I talked; eloquently, even vehemently urging the reason and
right of my opinion. She would be doing no more than every woman does,
no more than she did before; her mother-in-law had a comfortable home,
all that wealth could procure, good servants, and friends; the estates
could be managed without her personal supervision; after a few years'
work here they would go east for little Majorie's education; why should
two lives be broken?--and so I went on.

He listened carefully, even eagerly.

'You make a good case,' he said, with a slight smile. 'I will take time.
Perhaps you are right. The light will come. Surely it will come. But,'
and here he sprang up and stretched his arms to full length above his
head, 'I am not sorry; whatever comes I am not sorry. It is great to
have her love, but greater to love her as I do. Thank God! nothing can
take that away. I am willing, glad to suffer for the joy of loving her.'

Next morning, before I was awake, he was gone, leaving a note for me:--

'MY DEAR CONNOR,--I am due at the Landing. When I see you again I think
my way will be clear. Now all is dark. At times I am a coward, and
often, as you sometimes kindly inform me, an ass; but I hope I may never
become a mule.

I am willing to be led, or want to be, at any rate. I must do the
best--not second best--for her, for me. The best only is God's
will. What else would you have? Be good to her these days, dear old
fellow.--Yours, CRAIG.'

How often those words have braced me he will never know, but I am a
better man for them: 'The best only is God's will. What else would you
have?' I resolved I would rage and fret no more, and that I would worry
Mrs. Mavor with no more argument or expostulation, but, as my friend had
asked, 'Be good to her.'

CHAPTER XII

LOVE IS NOT ALL

Those days when we were waiting Craig's return we spent in the woods
or on the mountain side