d I went--to--to prove to them all that word was a
lie. I knew nothing they said here could touch you, but I couldn't bear
that the meanest hound living should dare think wrong of you. Seems like
I would have done it if I had had to crawl on my knees and swim the
ocean."

"My fingers tingle to grasp the throat of that young man. I fought him
for you once, and if it hadn't been for a rolling stone under my foot,
it would have been death for one of us. As it was, I won--with you to
save me--bless you."

"But now, David--"

"Ah, but now--what? Are you happy?"

"That isn't what I mean. You have your future--"

"I have my now. It is all we ever have. The past is gone, and lives only
in our memories, and the future exists only in anticipation; but
now--now is all we have or can have. Live in it and love in it and be
happy."

"But we must be wise. We've got to face it sometime. Let--me help
you--now while I have the strength," she pleaded earnestly.

But David only laughed out joyously, and looked at his wife until she
turned her face away from him. "Look at me," he cried. "Dear, troubled
eyes. Tears? Tears in them? Love, you have kept nothing back this time,
and now it is my turn, but I shall keep something back from you. I'm not
going to reprove your idolatry by turning iconoclast and throwing your
miserable old idol down from his pedestal all at once. I tell you what
it is, though, if I could feel that I was worthy of your smallest
finger--that I deserved only one of those big
tears--there--there--there! Listen, dearest, I'll come to the point.

"Who is it now, making so much of the estimates of the world? Somehow
our viewpoints have got mixed. Sacrifice myself? Why, Cassandra, if I
were to lose you out of my life, I should be a broken-hearted man. What
did I sacrifice? Phantoms, vanities, and emptiness. Oh, Cassandra,
Cassandra, my priestess of all that is good! Open your eyes, love, and
see as I see--as you have taught me to see.

"Much that we strive for and reckon as gain is really worthless. Why,
sweet, I would far, far rather have you at your loom for the mother of
my son, than Lady Clara at her piano. Your heritage of the great
nature--the far-seeing--the trusting spirit--harboring no evil and
construing all things to righteousness--going out into the world and
finding among all the dust and dross, even of centuries, only the pure
gold--the eye that sees into a man's soul, searching out the true and
lovel