pressed her hand to her heart--"something here tells me that
your day of battle is yet to come." Her eyes were brimming and full of
excitement. "We must all help you." She gained courage with each word.
"You must not fight alone. You work for civilisation; you must have
civilisation behind you." Her hands clasped nervously; there was a catch
in her throat. "You remember then, that I said I would call to you one
day, as your Uncle Benn did, and you should hear and answer me. It shall
not be that I will call. You--you will call, and I will help you if
I can. I will help, no matter what may seem to prevent, if there is
anything I can do. I, surely I, of all the world owe it to you to do
what I can, always.

"I owe so much--you did so much. Oh, how it haunts me! Sometimes in the
night I wake with a start and see it all--all!"

The flood which had been dyked back these years past had broken loose in
her heart.

Out of the stir and sweep of social life and duty, of official and
political ambition-heart-hungry, for she had no child; heart-lonely,
though she had scarce recognised it in the duties and excitements round
her--she had floated suddenly into this backwater of a motionless life
in Hamley. Its quiet had settled upon her, the shackles of her spirit
had been loosed, and dropped from her; she had suddenly bathed her heart
and soul in a freer atmosphere than they had ever known before. And
David and Hamley had come together. The old impulses, dominated by a
divine altruism, were swinging her out upon a course leading she knew
not, reeked not, whither--for the moment reeked not. This man's career,
the work he was set to do, the ideal before him, the vision of a land
redeemed, captured her, carried her panting into a resolve which,
however she might modify her speech or action, must be an influence in
her life hereafter. Must the penance and the redemption be his only?
This life he lived had come from what had happened to her and to him in
Egypt. In a deep sense her life was linked with his.

In a flash David now felt the deep significance of their relations. A
curtain seemed suddenly to have been drawn aside. He was blinded for a
moment. Her sympathy, her desire to help, gave him a new sense of hope
and confidence, but--but there was no room in his crusade for any woman;
the dear egotism of a life-dream was masterful in him, possessed him.

Yet, if ever his heart might have dwelt upon a woman with thought of the
future