Once she had been but one of many champions of the man and his work. From time to time under his name, the _Review_ had ignited London. The men of his world and hers had granted his supremacy as a picture-maker of war--and yet to her this was one of his lesser attractions. She loved to look into his conception of things _back of the words_. How pitiably often were the words shaped to meet the so-called needs of a daily paper, as the bones of a Chinese foot are crushed into a thimble. It was the master behind the narrator; the man who lived and moved in a wonderland that was a hopeless arcanum to the many; the man who glimpsed the temple of truth, if not from within, at least from the gardens--it was he who fascinated the woman. And since she loved him, she was proud that his intelligence enfolded her own. The physical man, Routledge, all men had found excellent in those good days before the mystery. His endurance and bravery had formed many classics for his craft. He had always bewitched her father. Incidentally, her life among the many friends of her father--soldiers, seamen, and civilian campaigners--had taught her that man’s judgment for man is best.... But it was not Routledge, the fearless and tireless; not Routledge, the male, who called her so ardently this night. At least, it was less the male than the mind; and less the mind than the mystic.... It would be the idlest affectation to assert that actual marriage with Routledge was beyond the pale of her thoughts; and yet this was not her ultimate passion. To be with him in great wanderings of gentle purport; to meet the suns and storms with calmness and cheer; constantly to toil together, helping, meditating, always together on the world’s highways, always looking toward God’s Good Hope, with thoughts in the stars, but not so lost in the stars that they missed the sorrowing by the roadside;--wandering grateful for life together, having a tear for the helpless, a smile for the beautiful, and a love for each other so vast and pure that it must needs love the world and reflect the love of God.... Such was Noreen Cardinegh’s dream of the fullness of days--so great a gratitude to the Most High for the presence of her lover, that it would manifest itself in eternal services to those who could not be so happy--services that faltered before no pain, quailed before no horrent spectacle, and retained their sweet savor in the lowliest haunts of men. Marriage.... It might come. In some garden of the world, there might be a halting, when the full tides of life swelled together. No fixed date, exterior formality; no words uttered by a Third could release these two for triumphant nuptial flight!... She had seen too much mangling of this intimate and portentous moment between man and woman, by a stranger, the member of a paid profession--how often the mere licensed liberator of lusts. A signal from him, as to runners set for a Marathon--the _spirit_ of chastity already a ghost....