nt."

"I know it, Dr. Saxham. I am sure of it." She rose and held out her hands
to him, but he folded his arms more closely over his starving, famished
heart, and would not see them yet.

"You can be sure of it. Alcohol is no longer my master and my god. I stand
before you a free man, because I willed to be free." There was a little
blob of foam at one corner of his mouth, but the square pale face was
composed, even impassive. "Once, not so long ago, I filled a place of
standing in the professions of Surgery and Medicine; I knew what it was to
be esteemed and respected by the world. For your dear sake I promise to
regain what I have lost; be even more than I used to be, achieve greater
things than are done by other men of equal powers with mine. I am not a
man to pledge my word lightly, Miss Mildare...." His voice shook now and
his blue eyes glistened. "If you would be so--so unutterably kind as to
become my wife, I promise you a worthy husband. I swear to you upon what I
hold dearest and most sacred--your own life, your own honour, your own
happiness, never to give you cause to regret marrying me! For I may die,
indeed, but living I will never fail you!"

There was a lump in her throat choking her. Her eyes had gone to that
other grave some fifty paces distant from the Catholic portion of the
Cemetery. There were freshly-gathered flowers upon it, as upon the grave
that lay so near, and two gorgeous butterflies were hovering about the
blooms, in mingled dalliance and greediness.

"You loved him," said Saxham, following the journey of her wistful eyes.
"Love him still; remember him for every trait and quality of his that was
worthy of love from you. But give me the hope of one day gaining from you
some shadow of--of return for what I feel for you. Is it Passion? I hardly
know. Whether it is Love, in the sense in which that word is employed by
many of the women and nearly all the men I have met, I do not know either.
But that it is the life of my life to me and the breath of my being--you
cannot look at me and doubt!"

She was not looking at him. Her eyes were on the little white cross above
the Mother's grave; there was an anxious fold between the slender dark
eyebrows.

"You--you wish to marry a Catholic--you, who tell me that you were once a
Christian and are now Agnostic?"

"If I have not what is called Faith," said Saxham, "I may at least lay
claim to the quality of reverence. And I honour the religion that ha