at her feet, encircled her with both arms, and
drew her down to him.

"My Thelma!" he whispered, "there _is_ nothing left--nothing at all
worth living for,--save Love!"

"Ah! but that," she answered softly, "is everything!"

* * * * * *

Is it so, indeed? Is Love alone worth living for--worth dying for? Is it
the only satisfying good we can grasp at among the shifting shadows of
our brief existence? In its various phases and different workings, is
it, after all, the brightest radiance known in the struggling darkness
of our lives?

Sigurd had thought so,--he had died to prove it. Philip thought
so,--when once more at home in England with his recovered "treasure of
the golden midnight" he saw her, like a rose refreshed by rain, raise
her bright head in renewed strength and beauty, with the old joyous
lustre dancing in her eyes, and the smile of a perfect happiness like
summer sunshine on her fair face. Lord Winsleigh thought so;--he was
spending the winter in Rome with his wife and son,--and there among the
shadows of the Caesars, his long, social martyrdom ended, and he
regained what he had once believed lost for ever--his wife's affection.
Clara gentle, wistful, with the softening shadow of a great sorrow and a
great repentance in her once too-brilliant eyes, was a very different
Clara to the dashing "beauty" who had figured so conspicuously in London
society. She clung to her husband with an almost timid eagerness as
though she dreaded losing him--and when he was not with her, she seemed
to rely entirely on her son, whom she watched with a fond, almost
melancholy pride, and who responded to her tenderness though proffered
so late, with the full-hearted frankness of his impulsive, ardent
nature. She wrote to Thelma asking her pardon, and in return received
such a sweet, forgiving, generous letter as caused her to weep for an
hour or more. But she felt she could never again meet the clear regard
of those beautiful, earnest, truthful eyes--never again could she stand
in Thelma's presence, or call her friend--that was all over. Still Love
remained,--a Love, chastened and sad, with drooping wings and a somewhat
doubting smile,--yet it was Love--

"Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime--
Love, that is blood--within the veins of time."

And Love, no matter how abused and maltreated, is a very patient god,
and even while suffering from undeserved wounds, still w