tyrdom of those he held
dearest, did, in fact, work to secure him a measure of content that had
otherwise been unattainable. The twelve years following the birth of
Lady Calmady's child were the most fruitful of his life. He filled a
post no other person could have filled; one which, while satisfying his
religious sense and priestly ideal of detachment, appeased the cravings
of his heart and developed the practical man in him. The contemplative
and introspective attitude was balanced by an active and objective one.
For he continued to live under his dear lady's roof, seeing her daily
and serving her in many matters. He watched her, admiring her clear yet
charitable judgment and her prudence in business. He bowed in reverence
before her perfect singleness of purpose. He was almost appalled,
apprehending, now and then, the secret abysses of her womanhood, the
immensity of her self-devotion, the swing of her nature from quick,
sensitive shrinking to almost impious pride. Man is the outcome of the
eternal common sense; woman that of some moment of divine folly.
Meanwhile the ways of true love are many; and Julius March, thus
watching his dear lady, discovered, as other elect souls have
discovered before him, that the way of chastity and silence,
notwithstanding its very constant heartache, is by no means among the
least sweet. The entries in his diaries of this period are
intermittent, concise, and brief--naturally enough, since the central
figure of Julius's mental picture had ceased, happily for him, to be
himself.

And not only Katherine's sorrows, but the unselfish action of another
woman went to make Julius March's position at Brockhurst tenable. A few
days after Ormiston's momentous interview with his sister, news came of
Mrs. St. Quentin's death. She had passed hence peacefully in her sleep.
Knowledge of the facts of poor, little Dickie Calmady's ill-fortune had
been spared her. For it would be more satisfactory--so Mademoiselle de
Mirancourt had remarked, not without a shade of irony--that if Lucia
St. Quentin must learn the sad fact at all, she should do so where _le
bon Dieu_ Himself would be at hand to explain matters, and so, in a
degree, set them right.

Early in April Mademoiselle de Mirancourt had gathered together her
most precious possessions and closed the pretty apartment in the rue de
Rennes. It had been a happy halting-place on the journey of life. It
was haunted by well-beloved ghosts. It cost not a