e do not need each other as sad people do. O
Mercy, do try and remember all the time that you are the one bright thing
in my life,--in my whole life."

"I will, Stephen, I will," said Mercy, resolutely, her whole face glowing
with the new purposes forming in her heart. It was marvellous how clear
the relation between herself and Stephen began to seem to her. It was
rather by her magnetic consciousness of all that he was thinking and
feeling than by the literal acceptance of any thing or all things which he
said. She seemed to herself to be already one with him in all his trials,
burdens, perplexities; in his renunciation; in his self-sacrifice; in his
loyalty of reticence; in his humility of uncomplainingness.

When she bade him "good-night," her face was not only serene: it was
serene with a certain exaltation added, as the face of one who had entered
into a great steadfastness of joy. Stephen wondered greatly at this
transition from the excitement and grief she had at first shown. He had
yet to learn what wellsprings of strength lie in the poetic temperament.

As he stood lingering on the threshold, finding it almost impossible to
turn away while the sweet face held him by the honest gaze of the loving
eyes, he said,

"There will be many times, dear, when things will have to be very hard,
when I shall not be able to do as you would like to have me, when you may
even be pained by my conduct. Shall you trust me through it all?"

"I shall trust you till the day of my death," said Mercy, impetuously.
"One can't take trust back. It isn't a gift: it is a necessity."

Stephen smiled,--a smile of sorrow rather than gladness.

"But if you thought me other than you had believed?" he said.

"I could never think you other than you are," replied Mercy, proudly. "It
is not that I 'believe' you. I know you. I shall trust you to the day of
my death."

Perhaps nothing could illustrate better the difference between Mercy
Philbrick's nature and Stephen White's, between her love for him and his
for her, than the fact that, after this conversation, she lay awake far
into the early hours of the morning, living over every word that he had
spoken, looking resolutely and even joyously into the strange future which
was opening before her, and scanning with loving intentness every chance
that it could possibly hold for her ministrations to him. He, on the other
hand, laid his head on his pillow with a sense of dreamy happiness, and
san