do hope you are mistaken. Of course he is
overworked--we all are; but that never hurt him before; and with things
going so splendidly---- Oh, I hope you are mistaken."

"Perhaps so," I said. "Certainly I think he has every reason to be
happy--to be happy and proud; every reason."

And I stopped at that; but Constance made no sign to me; and I wondered
she did not, for we were very intimate, and she was sweetly kind to me
in those days. Indeed, once when I looked up sharply at her with a
question from some work we were engaged upon, I saw a light in her
beautiful eyes which thrilled my very heart with strange delight. Her
expression had changed instantly, and I told myself I had no sort of
business to be thrilled by a look which was obviously born of reverie,
of thoughts about John Crondall. Such a sweet light of love her eyes
held! I told myself for the hundredth time that no consideration should
ever cloud the happiness of the man who was so fortunate as to inspire
it--to have won the heart which looked out through those shining eyes.

But it must not be supposed that I had much leisure for this sort of
meditation. My feeling for Constance certainly dominated me. Indeed, it
accounted for everything of import in my life--for my general attitude
of mind and, I make no doubt, for my being where I was and playing the
part I did play in _The Citizens'_ campaign. But our life was not one
that admitted of emotional preoccupation of any sort. We were too close
to the working mechanism of national progress. There never was more
absorbing work than the making and enrolment of _Citizens_ at such a
juncture in the history of one's country.

The spirit of our work, no less than that of the Canadian preachers'
teaching, was actually in the air at that time. It dominated English
life, from the mansions of the great landholders to the cottages of the
field-labourers and the tenements of the factory-hands. It affected
every least detail of the people's lives, and coloured all thought and
action in England--a process which I am sure was strengthened by the
remarkable growth of Colonial sentiment throughout the country at this
time. The tide of emigration seemed to have been reversed by some subtle
process of nature: the strong ebb of previous years had become a flow of
immigration. Everywhere one met Canadians, Australians, South Africans,
and an unusual number of Anglo-Indians.

"We've been doing pretty well of late," said one of t