He tried to recall her face, but he could not. When they were together he had not seen her; he had only felt her presence, only trembled at each slight movement of her hands. He always watched them when he was talking to her. He knew every movement of those strong, slender hands by heart. She had a little way of opening and shutting her left hand as she talked. He smiled even now as he thought of it. And she had a certain wave in her hair just above the ear, that was not the same over the other ear. But her face--no, he could not see her face. He tried again. They were sitting once again, he and she, not very near, nor very far apart, in the low entresol room at Overleigh. He could see her now. She was arranging the lilies of the valley, and he was saying to himself, as he watched her with his chin in his hands, "This is only the beginning. There will be many times like this, only dearer and sweeter than this." Many times! That deep conviction had proved as false as all the rest--as false as everything else which he had trusted. And all in a moment as he looked, as he remembered, was it endurance, was it principle, that seemed to snap? He set his teeth and ground his heel into the earth. Agony had come upon him. Passion, writhing in torment, rose gigantic without warning and seized him in a Titan grip. It was a duel to the death. * * * * * John sat motionless in the solitude of the heather. The bird was silent. On either hand the level moors met the level sky. Lindo walked in and out in semi and total eclipse near at hand, now emerging life-size upon a hillock, now visible only as an erect travelling tail amid the heather. The sun came faintly out. There was a little speech of bees, a little quivering among the poised spears of the tall bleached grasses against the sky. Time passed. John's was not the easy faith which believes that in another world what has been given up in this will be restored a thousandfold. The hope of future reward had no more power to move him than the fear of future punishment. The heaven of rewards of which those speak who have authority, would be no heaven at all to many; a place from which the noblest would turn away. Love worthy of the name, even down here, gives all, asking nothing back. John did not try to define even to himself the faith by which he had lived so far; but as the veiled sun stooped near and nearer to the west, he began to see, as clearly as he saw the sword-grass shaking against the sky, that he was about to remain true to it, or be false to it for ever.