ppiness, of his very
life, upon her shoulders, not by threats of vengeance on himself, but by
falling from his usual buoyant cheerfulness into a state of
uncomplaining despondency.

May had had more than her share of men's admiration. Her piquancy and
ready sympathy more even than her good looks attracted them. But she had
gone on her way heart whole, and meanwhile she could not endure to see
her old comrade unhappy.

They became formally engaged and he returned to his old careless
cheerfulness. He was no longer a pathetic object, and she was a little
disappointed and yet ashamed of her disappointment. Why should she have
vague "wants" in her nature--these luxuries of the pampered soul? The
face she now gazed upon, figured in the little ivory frame, was of a
man, not over-wise, a man who was occupied with the enjoyment of life,
yet without sinister motives. During those brief six months of married
life, he had leant upon her, delighted and yet amused at her sterner
virtues; and yet this man, not strong, not wise, when the call of duty
came, when that ancient call to manhood, the call to rise up and meet
the enemy, when that call came, he went out not shrinking, but with all
honourable eagerness and fearlessness to offer his life. And his life
was taken.

So that he whom in life she had never looked to for moral help, had
become to her--in death--something sacred and unapproachable. In her
first fresh grief she had asked herself bitterly what she--in her young
womanhood--had ever offered to humanity? Nothing at all comparable to
his sacrifice! Had she ever offered anything at all? Had she not, from
girlhood, taken all the joys that life put in her way, and taken them
for granted?

She had been aware of an underworld of misery, suffering and vice, had
seen glimpses of it, heard its sounds breaking in upon her serenity. She
had, like the travelling Levite, observed, noted, and had gone about her
own business. So with passionate self-reproach she had thrown herself
into work among the neglected children of the poor, and had tried to
still the clamour of her conscience and fill the emptiness of her heart.

And until now, that life had absorbed her and satisfied her--until now!

"I am not worthy to look upon your face," she murmured, and she closed
the ivory case, letting it fall upon her lap. She hid her face in her
hands. Oh, why had she during those six months of marriage patronised
him in her thoughts? Why had she