undisturbed happiness in life.
I must go. I leave you to the quiet of the woods."

"I am sorry," she said, "I am sorry that you are able to imply that you
have never known happiness. Surely you cannot mean that." It was all she
could say. His look of profound melancholy hurt her, for like all who
knew Mark Rivers well, she loved, respected and admired him.

He made no explanatory reply, but after a brief silence said, "I must go,
Leila, where there are both duties and dangers--not--no, not in cities."

"I trust you do not mean to leave us--surely not!"

"No, not yet--not while I can be of use to these dear friends."

As she moved on at his side or before him, he saw too well the easy grace
of her strong young virgin form, the great blue eyes, the expressive
tenderness of features which told of dumb sympathy with what she had no
knowledge to understand. He longed to say, "I love you and am condemned
by my conscience to ask no return." It would only add to his unhappiness
and disturb a relation which even in its incompleteness was dear to him.
The human yearning to confess, to win even the sad luxury of pity beset
the man. In his constant habit of introspection, he had become
unobservant and had no least idea that the two young people he loved so
well were nearing what was to him forever impossible.

"Let me sit down," he said unwilling to leave her; "I am tired." He was
terribly afraid of himself and shaken by a storm of passion, which left
his sensitive body feeble.

She sat down with him on a great trunk wrecked a century ago. "Are you
not well?" she asked, observing the paleness of his face.

"No, it is nothing. I am not very well, but it is nothing of moment.
Don't let it trouble you--I am much as usual. I want, Leila, what I
cannot get--what I ought not to get." Even this approach to fuller
confession relieved him.

"What is there, my dear Mr. Rivers, you cannot get? Oh! you are a man to
envy with your hold on men, your power to charm, your eloquence. I have
heard Dr. McGregor talk of what you were among the wounded and the dying
on the firing-line. Don't you know that you are one of God's helpful
messengers, an interpreter into terms of human thought and words of what
men need to-day, when--"

"No, no," he broke in, lifting a hand of dissenting protest. The flushed
young face as she spoke, his sense of being nobly considered by this
earnest young woman had again made him feel how just the little more
wou