im, to evaporate before his waking eyes. And, try as he would, he could
not realize to the full depth the boy of contact with a being whom, by
discipline, he had trained his mind to look upon as the unattainable.
They had spoken of the future, yet in these moments any consideration of
it was blotted out... It was only by degrees that he collected himself
sufficiently to be able to return to it... Alison took up the thread.

"Surely," she said, "sacrifice is useless unless it means something,
unless it be a realization. It must be discriminating. And we should
both of us have remained incomplete if we had not taken--this. You would
always, I think, have been the one man for me,--but we should have lost
touch." He felt her tremble. "And I needed you. I have needed you all
my life--one in whom h might have absolute faith. That is my faith, of
which I could not tell you awhile ago. Is it--sacrilegious?"

She looked up at him. He shook his head, thinking of his own. It seemed
the very distillation of the divine. "All my life," she went on, "I
have been waiting for the one who would risk everything. Oh, if you had
faltered the least little bit, I don't know what I should have done.
That would have destroyed what was left of me, put out, I think, the
flickering fire that remained, instead of fanning it into flame. You
cannot know how I watched you, how I prayed! I think it was prayer--I am
sure it was. And it was because you did not falter, because you risked
all, that you gained me. You have gained only what you yourself made,
more than I ever was, more than I ever expected to be."

"Alison!" he remonstrated, "you mustn't say that."

She straightened up and gazed at him, taking one of his hands in her
lithe fingers.

"Oh, but I must! It is the truth. I felt that you cared--women are surer
in such matters than men. I must conceal nothing from you--nothing of my
craftiness. Women are crafty, you know. And suppose you fail? Ah, I do
not mean failure--you cannot fail, now. You have put yourself forever
beyond failure. But what I mean is, suppose you were compelled to leave
St. John's, and I came to you then as I have come now, and begged to
take my place beside you? I was afraid to risk it. I was afraid you
would not take me, even now, to-night. Do you realize how austere you
are at times, how you have frightened me?"

"That I should ever have done that!" he said.

"When I looked at you in the pulpit you seemed so far from