h had suddenly arisen above Elisabeth's horizon; he was
far too masculine to understand that his own pathos could be pathetic,
or his own suffering dramatic. It is only women--or men who have much of
the woman in their composition--who can say:

"Here I and sorrow sit,
This is my throne; let kings come bow to it."

The thoroughly manly man is incapable of seeing the picturesque effect
of his own misery.

So Christopher pulled himself together and tried to talk of trivial
things; and Miss Farringdon, having walked through the dark valley
herself, knew the comfort of the commonplace therein, and fell in with
his mood, discussing nurses and remedies and domestic arrangements and
the like. Elisabeth, however, was distinctly disappointed in
Christopher, because he could bring himself down to dwell upon these
trifling matters when the Angel of Death had crossed the lintel of his
doorway only last night, and was still hovering round with overshadowing
wings. It was just like him, she said to herself, to give his attention
to surface details, and to miss the deeper thing. She had yet to learn
that it was because he felt so much, and not because he felt so little,
that Christopher found it hard to utter the inmost thoughts of his
heart.

But when Miss Farringdon had made every possible arrangement for Mr.
Smallwood's comfort, and they rose to leave, Elisabeth's heart smote her
for her passing impatience; so she lingered behind after her cousin had
left the room, and, slipping her hand into Christopher's, she
whispered--

"Chris, dear, I'm so dreadfully sorry!"

It was a poor little speech for the usually eloquent Elisabeth to make;
in cold blood she herself would have been ashamed of it; but Christopher
was quite content. For a second he forgot that he had decided not to
let Elisabeth know that he loved her until he was in a position to marry
her, and he very nearly took her in his strong arms and kissed her there
and then; but before he had time to do this, his good angel (or perhaps
his bad one, for it is often difficult to ascertain how one's two
guardian spirits divide their work) reminded him that it was his duty to
leave Elisabeth free to live her own life, unhampered by the knowledge
of a love which might possibly find no fulfilment in this world where
money is considered the one thing needful; so he merely returned the
pressure of her hand, and said in a queer, strained sort of voice--

"Thanks a