ire,
piled the blazing logs upon them, and stamped them down, sending showers
flying up the wide chimney.

Then the blaze of passion died away from Gervase's brow, the force of
self-devotion ebbed out of him, his unfastened vest and shirt collar did
not allow him air enough, and he fell back, gasping and quaking and
calling the devils were upon him.

Old Miles wrung his hands, and shouted "Help," and cried the Master was
dying, was dead.

But Diana pushed the old servant aside, put her arms round Gervase, and
raised him on her breast, telling him, "Do not think of dying for me,
Gervase; I am not worthy. You must not die, I will not have you die. Oh,
God! spare him till I kneel at his feet and beg him to forgive all my
disdainful pity, and we repent together."

Gervase Norgate did not die that night: it might have been easier for
him if he had, for he lay, sat, walked in the sunshine deadly sick for
months. When men like him are saved, it is only as by fire, by letting a
part of the penal fire pass over them, and enduring, as David did, the
pains of hell.

But all the time Die did not leave him. Night and day she stood by him,
renouncing her own sin for ever. She shared vicariously its revolting
anguish and agonizing fruits, in his pangs. And the woman learned to
love the man as she would have learned to love a child whom she had
tended every hour for what looked like a lifetime, whom she had brought
back from a horrible disease and from the brink of the grave, to whose
recovery she had given herself body and soul, in a way she had never
dreamt of when she first undertook the task. She had lulled him to sleep
as with cradle songs, she had fed him with her hands, ministered to him
with her spirit. She learned to love him exceedingly.

Other summer suns shone on Ashpound. Gervase and Diana had come back
from a lengthened sojourn abroad. Gervase, going on a visit to his
faithful old Aunt Tabby, looked behind him, to say, half-shamefacedly,
half-yearningly, "I wish you would come with me, Die; I do not think I
can pay the visit without you." And she exclaimed, with a little laugh,
beneath which ran an undercurrent of feeling, still and deep, "Ah! you
see you cannot do without me, sir." And he rejoined, laughing too, but a
little wistfully, "I wish I could flatter myself that you could not do
without me, madam."

She assured him, with a sudden sedateness which hid itself shyly on his
breast, "Of course I could not do