that, for pity's sake, she must be alive and near
him. But he was always alone.

Silent, iron-browed, iron-handed, he faced the world alone, doing all
that was required of him, and more also. As he had said to Gloria in
that very room, he was building up a superiority for himself, since
genius was not his. He had in the rough ore of his strength the metal
which some few men receive as a birth-gift from nature, ready smelted
and refined, ready for them to coin at a single stroke, and throw
broadcast to the applauding world. He had not much, perhaps, but he had
something of the true ore, and in the furnace of his untiring energy he
would burn out the dross and find the precious gold at last. It could
not be for her, now. It was not for himself, but it was to be for the
little child, growing up in a far country with a clean name--to be his
father's friend, and nothing more, but to be happy, for the dead woman's
sake who bore him.

As in all that made a part of Paul Griggs, there was in his memory of
Gloria and in his sorrow for her that element of endurance which was the
foundation of his nature. That portion of his life was finished, and
there could never be anything like it again; but it was to be always
present with him, so long as he lived. He was sure of that. It would
always be in his power to close his eyes and believe that she was near
him. If it were possible, he loved her more dead than he had loved her
living.

And she had loved him to the last, and had given her life in the mad
thought of lightening his burden. Her last words to him had told him
so. Her last wish had been to see the child. And the greatest sacrifice
he could now make to her was to separate himself from the child, and let
him grow up to look upon the man who provided for him as his friend, but
as nothing more. It was an exaggerated idea, perhaps, though it was by
far the wisest course. Yet in doing what he did, Griggs deprived himself
for months at a time of something that was of her, and he did it for her
sake. He knew that in her heart there had been the unspoken shame of her
ruined life. Shame should never come near little Walter Crowdie. The
secret could be kept, and Paul Griggs meant to keep it, as he kept many
things from the world.

All his lonely life grew in the perfect memory, cut short though it was
by fate's cruel scythe-stroke. Even that one fearful day held no shadow
of unfaithfulness. She had been mad, but she had loved him.