ly her friend in need.

As the long, sunny afternoon wore away, she found herself watching him
and in silence marvelling. How was it that this man in his utter,
piteous weakness accomplished so much, ruled thus supreme? Wherein lay
that potent charm of his which neither devil nor brute could effectively
resist? Whence came it, this power of the soul, this deliberate and
conscious mastery?

She watched Bertie waiting on him, hovering about him, ready to spring up
at his lightest word to execute his scarcely-uttered wish. Other
men--even great men--did not command this personal homage, this complete,
incessant devotion. Undoubtedly there was something kingly about him; but
wherein did it lie? Not in the impotent, unwieldy figure, not in the
pleasant, emotionless drawl, not even in the friendly quiet of his eyes,
the kindly sympathy of his smile. In none of these lay his power, and yet
in all of them it was in some fashion apparent. No great force of
personality characterised him, and yet his monarchy was absolute. No
splendour of intellect, no keenness of wit, no smartness of repartee were
his. Only a shrewdness of understanding that was never cruel, a humour
that had no edge.

And presently Anne remembered that his own mother had given her the key
to the problem, and she doubted not that it solved the whole. "It isn't
personal magnetism," Mrs. Errol had said, "nor anything of that sort.
It's just love."

That was the magic to which even Nap, the fierce, the passionate, the
treacherous, had been forced to bow. In the midst of his weakness this
man wielded an all-potent power--a power before which they all
instinctively did homage--before which even devils humbled
themselves--because it was Divine.

That was the secret of his strength. That was the weapon by which he
conquered. She wondered if it had always been so, or if his physical
weakness had tended to develop in him a greatness of heart of which more
active men were quite incapable. It might be true, as Mrs. Errol had
contended, that all men had their possibilities, but, this was the only
man she had ever met who had turned them to account. All unconsciously,
perhaps in response to a reaction which had been necessarily violent,
Anne yielded herself that day for the first time in her life to a species
of hero-worship that could not but beautify her own sad life.

When later she found herself alone with him, they talked for a space upon
indifferent things, and t