as far as my own emotions are concerned then, I retract nothing of
what I told you. In fact, to-day I could say more. To me she is and
ever will be the most wonderful woman who ever lived. Thinking of you
before, I said there ought to be two of her, so that one might be left
for you. Now, thinking of myself, I would to God there were two of
her, so that one might be left for me. Yet that is inconceivable. It
might be possible to find another who looked like her; who thought like
her; who was willing for the big things of life like her. But this
other would not be Marjory. Besides everything else she has in common
with other women, she has something all her own that makes her herself.
It's that something that has got hold of me, Covington.

I don't suppose it's in particularly good taste for me to talk to you
of your wife in this fashion; but it's my dying speech, old man, as far
as this subject is concerned, and I 'm talking to you and to no one
else.

There's just one thing more I want to say. I don't want either you or
Marjory to think I'm going out of your lives a martyr--that I'm going
off to pine and die. The first time she left me I made an ass of
myself, and that was because I had not then got hold of the essential
fact of love. As I see it now, love--real love--does not lie in the
personal gratification of selfish desires. The wanting is only the
first stage. Perhaps it is a ruse of Nature to entice men to the
second stage, which is giving.

Until recently my whole thought was centered on getting. I was
thinking of myself alone. It was baffled desire and injured vanity
that led me to do what I did before, and I was justly punished. It was
when I began to think less about myself and more about her that I was
reprieved. I'm leaving her now with but one desire: to do for her
whatever I may, at any time and in any place, to make her happy; and,
because of her, to do the same for any others with whom for the rest of
my life I may be thrown in contact. Thus I may be of some use and find
peace.

I'm going away, Covington. That will leave her here alone. Wherever
you are, there must be trains back to Nice--starting perhaps within the
hour.

So long.

PETER J. NOYES.

CHAPTER XXVI

FREEDOM

With the departure of Peter and his sister--Peter had made his
leave-taking easy by securing an earlier train than she had expected
and sending her a brief note of farewell--Marjory found hersel