nly
excuse for living is to make it a little easier."

He rose as he spoke and held out his hand with a smile. "So long as
you're happy, don't bother to think of me," he said; "but if there ever
comes a time when you need a sword-arm, let me know."

Would she ever find that she had need of him? he asked himself presently
as he walked rapidly homeward through the streets. Was it in the
remotest probability of events that he should ever know the delight of
putting forth his full strength in her service? Like a beautiful dream
the thought stayed by him for many minutes, and his mind dwelt upon it
as upon some rare, cherished vision that lies always behind the actual
energies of life. He thought of her dark, eloquent eyes, of the
imaginative spirit in her look, and of that peculiar blending of
strength with sweetness which he had found in no woman except herself.
It was a part of the power she exercised that in thinking of her the
physical images appeared always to express a quality that was not in
themselves alone.

Then, because he must let her go forever, he set himself patiently to
detach her presence from his memory. To think of her had become, he
knew, the luxury of weakness, and in order to test his strength for
renouncement, he brought his mind deliberately to bear upon the
immediate necessity before him. It was useless to say to himself that he
could as soon give up his dream as his desire. The endurance of his
will, he realised, was equal to whatever sacrifice he was called upon to
make and live.

"I can do without--take this--take all and leave me nothing," he had
said in the hour of his deepest misery; and with the knowledge of his
strength to renounce all that which lay outside himself had come also
the knowledge of his power to possess whatever was within his soul. Life
was forfeiture and he had given up the world that he might gain himself.
Since the night when he had distractedly sought God through the city, he
had become gradually aware that he moved in the midst of a large
unspeakable peace, for in willing as God willed he had entered, he
found, into a happiness which was independent and almost oblivious of
the external tragedy in which he lived. Neither sickness nor poverty,
nor the shame of Connie's sin, nor the weakness of his own flesh, had
power to separate him from the wisdom which had come to him under the
eyes of the harlot at the crossing. In seeking the essential thing he
had wandered for ye