"Do you mean," he asked incredulously, "that you never noticed, what every one else saw so plainly, that that poor fellow fairly worshipped the ground you trod on?" Then again a painful flush came to Elizabeth's face. "I was not sure," she stammered, for her conscience did not wholly acquit her--"I would not let myself see or notice things; besides, I was thinking of you." Then David kissed the hands he held; but there was a troubled look in his eyes. "Poor beggar!" he muttered to himself. Then aloud, "Do you know, my darling, what people will say when they hear you have thrown over a man like Herrick for me--for a mere curate, with empty pockets and not too many brains." "Do you suppose I care what they say!" throwing her head back in rather a regal fashion. "They will say you are mad; and upon my word," and here David knit his brows in a puzzled manner, "I am not sure that they will be wrong. Look at the difference between us. Herrick is my superior in every way. I used to shake in my shoes to hear him talk to the vicar. Elizabeth, my heart aches for that poor fellow, but even you do not know what I have suffered on his account all these weeks. There were times when I was tempted to throw up the sponge." "Oh, David, when you knew--when you must have known my feelings!" "Yes, I knew; but there were days when my courage failed me, and I felt I had no right to stand in your light. Dearest," and here he was kneeling beside her with all a man's worship in his honest eyes, "you are too good for me--do you think I do not know that it is your goodness and generosity that make you stoop to me!" But Elizabeth laid her hand upon his lips. "Hush, you shall not talk so. It is I who am not worthy of you. I love you, David--I love you, oh so dearly; that is enough for you--and me too," and Elizabeth looked at him with an adorable smile. Then for a little while Malcolm Herrick was forgotten. CHAPTER XXV "IT HAS GONE VERY DEEP" When you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave. --SHAKESPEARE. Fulfil the perfection of long-suffering--be thou patient. --Teaching of Buddha. All his life long Malcolm never spoke of the hours that followed that fateful interview down by the Pool, when he was as one who had just received his baptism of fire--when he was scorched through and through with that new and terrible agony. "He will take it hardly," Dinah had said to herself. "His nature is intense, and he will suffer more than most men;" and she was right. Malcolm did suffer cruelly.