om, with a
certain quick way as if she were excited; Rollo took it and
turned over the leaves, then placed it before her open.

'I have heard you read the Bible once. Read now those two
verses.'

"For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus
judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that
he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth
live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and
rose again."--2 Cor. v. 14, 15.

Wych Hazel read the words slowly, softly,--then look[ed] up at
him again.

'Is _that_ what it means in you?' she said.

'What do the words imply, for anybody?' he said, with his eyes
going down into hers as they did sometimes, like as if they
would get at the yet unspoken thoughts. But hers fell again to
the book.

'I suppose, they should mean--what they say,' she answered in
the same slow fashion. 'But what that is,--or at least would
be,--I do not very well know.'

'If One died for me,--if it is because of his love and death
for me that I live at all,--to whom do I properly belong?
myself, or him?'

'Well, and then?' she said, passing the question as answered.

'_Then_ a good many things,' he said, smiling again. 'Suppose
that he, to whom I belong, has work that he wants done,--
suppose there are people he wants taken care of and helped,--if
I love him and if I belong to him, what shall I like to do?'

'What you are doing, I suppose,' said Hazel, with a little
undefined twinge that came much nearer jealousy than she
guessed.

'That is very plain, and perfectly simple, isn't it?'

'It sounds so.'--And glancing furtively at the bright, clear
face, she added to herself Dr. Maryland's old words: 'Love
likes her bonds!'--That was plain too.

'Then another question. If I belong to this One whom I love,
does not all that I have belong to him too?'

'But it was not _I_ who said you were ruining yourself,' said
the girl in her quick way. 'I liked it.'

'Did you?' said he, with one of his flashes of eye. 'But I am
giving you a lesson to study. I am not justifying myself.
Answer my question. Does not all I have belong to that One,
who loves me and whom I love?'

She bowed her head in assent. Somehow the words hurt her.

'So that, whatever I do, I cannot be said to _give_ him
anything? It is all his already. I am asking you a business
question. I want you to answer just as it appears to you.'

'How can it appear but in one way?' said Hazel