strong. The gallant nature of the contest and the great
stake braced her; she felt the blood quicken in her pulse.

But, all through, the other thing really mastered her: the fixed idea
that Jim must be saved. As it deepened, the other life that she had
lived became like the sports in which we shared when children, full of
vivacious memory, shining with impulse and the stir of life, but not to
be repeated--days and deeds outgrown. So the light of one idea shone in
her face. Yet she was intensely human too; and if her eyes had not been
set on the greater glory, the other thought might have vulgarised her
mind, made her end and goal sordid--the descent of a nature rather than
its ascension.

When Nancy came, the lesser idea, the stake, took on a new importance,
for now it seemed to her that it was her duty to secure for the child
its rightful heritage. Then Jim, too, appeared in a new light, as
one who could never fulfil himself unless working through the natural
channels of his birth, inheritance, and upbringing. Jim, drunken and
unreliable, with broken will and fighting to find himself--the waste
places were for him, until he was the master of his will and emotions.
Once however, secure in ability to control himself, with cleansed brain
and purpose defined, the widest field would still be too narrow for his
talents--and the five, yes, the fifty millions of his father must be
his.

She had never repented having married Jim; but twice in those three
years she had broken down and wept as though her heart would break.
There were times when Jim's nerves were shaken in his struggle against
the unseen foe, and he had spoken to her querulously, almost sharply.
Yet in her tears there was no reproach for him, rather for herself--the
fear that she might lose her influence over him, that she could not
keep him close to her heart, that he might drift away from her in the
commonplaces and monotony of work and domestic life. Everything so
depended on her being to him not only the one woman for whom he cared,
but the woman without whom he could care for nothing else.

"Oh, my God, give me his love," she had prayed. "Let me keep it yet a
little while. For his sake, not for my own, let me have the power to
hold his love. Make my mind always quiet, and let me blow neither hot
nor cold. Help me to keep my temper sweet and cheerful, so that he will
find the room empty where I am not, and his footsteps will quicken when
he comes to the