"Let me. It is the happiest thing I have ever done for myself."

"But I don't wish it."

"Ah, but I do," she said, the low excited laughter scarcely fluttering
her lips. "Listen: I never before, in all my life, gave up anything for
your sake, only this one little pitiful thing."

"I won't let you!" he breathed; "it is nonsense to--"

"You must let me! Am I to be on friendly terms with--with your mortal
enemy?" She was still smiling, but now her sensitive mouth quivered
suddenly.

He sat silent, considering her, his restless fingers playing with his
glass in which the harmless bubbles were breaking.

"I drink to your health, Stephen," she said under her breath. "I drink
to your happiness, too; and--and to your fortune, and to all that
you desire from fortune." And she raised her glass in the star-light,
looking over it into his eyes.

"All I desire from fortune?" he repeated significantly.

"All--almost all--"

"No, all," he demanded.

But she only raised the glass to her lips, still looking at him as she
drank.

They became unreasonably gay almost immediately, though the beverage
scarcely accounted for the delicate intoxication that seemed to creep
into their veins. Yet it was sufficient for Siward to say an amusing
thing wittily, for Sylvia to return his lead with all the delightful,
unconscious brilliancy that he seemed to inspire in her--as though
awaking into real life once more. All that had slumbered in her through
the winter and spring, and the long, arid summer now crumbling to the
edge of autumn, broke out into a delicate riot of exquisite florescence;
the very sounds of her voice, every intonation, every accent, every
pause, were charming surprises; her laughter was a miracle, her beauty a
revelation.

Leila, aware of it, exchanged glance after glance with Plank. Siward,
alternately the leader in it all, then the enchanted listener,
bewitched, enthralled, felt care slipping from his shoulders like a
mantle, and sadness exhaling from a heart that was beating strongly,
steadily, fearlessly--as a heart should beat in the breast of him who
has taken at last his fighting chance. He took it now, under her eyes,
for honour, for manhood, and for the ideal which had made manhood no
longer an empty term muttered in desperation by a sick body, and a mind
too sick to control it.

Yes, at last the lifelong battle was on. He knew it. He knew, too,
whatever his fate with her or without her, he must always