“My faith in my destiny. The star of Baltazar. Once upon a time the original bearer of my name, with the others, had faith in a star, and he followed it and found God.” She smiled. “Dear, aren’t you talking a bit wildly?” “What’s the good of speech if one can’t use it wildly in wild moments?” He laughed. “Oh, you belovedest woman,” said he, and kissed her. Presently: “You’ll come out to China with me? You’ll progress like a queen. I’ll see to that.” “It doesn’t matter how I progress,” she said, “so long as I’m with you. I’m yours body and soul to the end of time.” “To the end of Eternity,” he cried. “I prefer that. It’s bigger. The biggest there is is good enough for me.” His dancing eyes burned like flames of pride and happiness. Twenty years seemed to have fallen from him, and she saw before her the young man whom as a girl she had loved. “You and I are going over to the greatest work ever attempted by man. The regeneration of half the continent of Asia. I couldn’t have done it alone. The prospect frightened me. Yes, it did. I hadn’t the heart. But with you—I stake my faith in the Star—it’ll be one of the great accomplishments of the war. Quong Ho will come with us. He’ll have his chance. I’ll make him one of the great men of the New China.” He went on, expounding his vision of the new order of Oriental things. She marvelled at him, for it seemed as if he had but lived for that moment. And divining his Great Sacrifice, she forgot the selfless years that had all but moulded her into a mere machine of tender service to maimed and diseased humanity, and felt a thing of small account before this man whose unconquerable faith and indomitable courage transformed his colossal vanities into virtues, and who, for all his egotism, was endowed with the supreme gift of love. “Godfrey will be astonished at all this,” she hazarded. “Astonishment,” said he, “is an emotion salutary for the very young. It stimulates thought.” THE END TRANSCRIBER NOTES Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur. End of Project Gutenberg's The House of Baltazar, by William J. Locke