s in a
turmoil of fear and hope that he would approach her. But he paced his
own side of the room.

"Edith," he said, "there is no way of explaining this. You can't
understand. I know you have given yourself up to a life of service,
and I honour you very much, and all that, but there are some things you
won't be able to understand. You can't understand just how much I
loved Irene."

"I think I can," she answered, quietly. "You have kept your love
faithful and single for a dozen years, and I--I think I can understand.
But that isn't why I asked. Because if you loved Irene a week ago you
love her to-night."

"Have you never known of love being turned to hate?"

"No. Other impulses may be, but not love. Love can no more turn to
hate than sunlight can turn to darkness. Believe me, Dave, if you hate
Irene now you never loved her. Listen:

"'Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
_endureth_ all things!'"

"Not all things, Edith; not all things."

"It says _all_ things."

Dave was silent for some time. When he spoke again she caught a
different sound in his voice; a tone as though his soul in those few
moments had gone through a life-time of experience.

"Edith," he said, "when you repeated those words I knew you had
something that I have not. I knew it, not by the words, but by the way
you said them. You made me feel that you were not setting a higher
standard for me than you would accept for yourself. You made me _know_
that in your own life, if you loved, you would be ready to endure all
things. Tell me, Edith, how may this thing be done?"

She trembled with delight at the new tone in his voice, for she knew
that in that hour Dave had crossed a boundary of his life and entered
into a new and richer field of existence. She knew that for him life
would never again be the empty, flippant, selfish, irresponsible thing
which in the past he had called life. He was already beginning to
taste of that wine of compensation provided for those who pass through
the valley of sorrow.

"In your case," she said, "the course is simple. It is just a case of
forgiving."

He gazed for a time into the street, while thoughts of bitterness and
revenge fought for domination of his mind. "Edith," he said at length,
"must I--forgive?"

"I do not say you must," she answered. "I merely say if you are wise
you will. Forgiveness is the balm of our moral life, by which we keep
the wounds