e. He thought there might be, and that he had sat long
enough now by the open grave of his dead love. It was time to close
it, and leave what it held to the keeping of a dormant memory only--a
memory that would never die, but that was serene, passive and at rest.

So he pondered as he rode, and told Josephine's virtues as golden
beads between his fingers, to which his acceptance would give their
due value, wanting until now--their due value, merited if not won. And
for himself, would she make him happy? On the whole he thought that
she would. She worshiped him, perhaps, as he had worshiped that other,
and it was pleasant to Sebastian Dundas to be worshiped. He might do
worse, if also he might do better; but at least in taking Josephine he
knew what he was about, and Fina would not be made unhappy. He forgot
Leam. Yes, he would take Josephine for his wife by and by, when the
fitting moment came, and in doing so he would begin life anew and be
once more made free of joy.

He was one of those men resilient if shallow, and resilient perhaps
because shallow, who, persecuted by an evil fortune, are practically
unconquerable--men who, after they have been prostrated by a blow
severe enough to shatter the strongest heart, come back to their old
mental place after a time smiling, in nowise crushed or mutilated, and
as ready to hope and love and believe and plan as before--men who are
never ennobled by sorrow, never made more serious in their thoughts,
more earnest in their aims, though, as Sebastian had been, they may
be fretful enough while the sore is open--men who seem to be the
unresisting sport of the unseen powers, buffeted, tortured as we see
helpless things on earth--dogs beaten and horses lashed--for the mere
pleasure of the stronger in inflicting pain, and for no ultimate good
to be attained by the chastening. The souls of such men are like
those weighted tumblers of pith: knocked down twenty times, on
the twenty-first they stand upright, and nothing short of absolute
destruction robs them of their elasticity. As now when Sebastian
planned the base-lines of his new home with Josephine, and built
thereon a pretty little temple of friendship armed like love.

His heart was broken, he said to himself, but Josephine held the
fragments, and he would make himself tolerably content with the rivet.
Still, it was broken all the same; which simply meant that of the two
he loved madame the better, and would have chosen her befo