an in a thousand would have
ventured it. What did I tell you, Audrey?--that Blake was just the
fellow to win the Victoria Cross.'

'He was very brave,' she murmured; but she trembled all over as she
spoke.

'He was more than brave. What was my action in Zululand compared to his?
He stepped into the jaws of death quietly, and with his eyes opened, for
he must have known that two could not have been saved. He has given his
noble life for a wretched worthless one. It sounds inhuman to say it,
but who would have mourned if that poor old man had been swept away?
Would it not have been better if he had left him to his fate?'

'You must not say that!' returned Audrey. And now the tears were running
down her face. 'It is this that makes it so noble, so Christ-like--a
life laid down out of love and pity for the worthless. My brave Cyril!
Who is more fit to go than he? Ah, I knew him so well; he is very
reserved; he is not one to speak of religion--very few young men do; he
never liked to do so; but in a simple, manly way he has tried to live
it. I always knew he was good. Yes, Michael, it was better for him to
give up his fresh young life than for that old man to die in his sins.'

He could not steady his voice to answer her. Would any other girl have
taken it in this way? He felt there were depths in her nature that he
had not fathomed yet. The nobleness of the action seemed to lift her up
out of her grief. The heroic death was a fit ending to that brave life,
short as it was.

There were a few minutes' silence, during which she wept quietly, and
then she roused herself to ask after Mrs. Blake. A deeper shade passed
over Michael's face as she put the question.

'Poor soul!' he returned in a grieved voice; 'I fear it will go very
hardly with her. Abercrombie tried to say a word to her about her son's
hopeless condition, but she dropped at his feet like a dead thing. I had
to leave him with her, and go back to poor Blake, as he was asking for
her. I am afraid Abercrombie had to be very stern with her, for by and
by she crept in quietly enough, and sat down beside him. When I left he
was talking to her, but I do not believe that she understood a word that
he said; she looks as though she has been turned to stone.'

Audrey sighed, and a moment afterwards she said a little wearily:

'Oh, how slowly we are going! Shall we ever be there?'

Then Michael took her hand gently in his; she was so patient, so good:
if only he coul