'It is settled, then?' he said presently, again swallowing something unsatisfactory that seemed to stick. 'Yes; it is settled. She has given me an antidote, a charm, against that accursed thing. She has told me to think of her.' He was thinking of her now as he lay back in his chair watching the sunlight steal along the roof, and up, up, up the spire of the college chapel. He was thinking of Lucy's sweet eyes, and her blushing cheeks, and the golden ripples of her hair, and he was telling himself that the thought of her would be a tower of strength to him in the future, that he would never, never fall again. When the old temptation came, let it take what form it would, he should be able to meet it. He would only have to think of Lucy. Eric watched him as he sat on the couch opposite. He guessed what was passing in his mind. His own mind travelled over the ground with him, and presently he paused and sighed. He had come to a _cul-de-sac_. 'Well,' Edgell said, looking round like one aroused from a day-dream, 'what are you croaking at, Wattles?' Eric made a feeble attempt to smile; it was a very poor attempt, and it only made his poor tired face look more ghastly. 'I only hope, dear fellow, it will answer,' he said huskily. 'Of course it will answer. It is the only thing in the world for me, and for such as me. There is nothing but the love of a woman that can hold a fellow back when--when he has gone so far as I have; there is nothing but a woman's love that could reach down, down--God only knows how deep--and pick a fellow up who has fallen into the pit, that can drag a man out, wounded and maimed, from under the very wheels of Juggernaut at the risk of her own life and reason. There is only one kind of love that can do this.' Eric looked at him with a strange pity in his eyes. 'You think it is right to put her to such a test?' he said. 'I do not think anything about it. If she loves me, she will not think any trial too hard. Tush, man! you know nothing about love if you do not know that love delights in sacrifice. It must have its altar--the rites could not be celebrated without an altar--and it must have its offering--its free-will offering--its victim. It withholds not its dearest--how should it? Love has no self.' Eric groaned. He knew nothing about a woman's love. He didn't believe that little Lucy could ever love a man like that. 'My dear fellow,' he said, 'you judge a woman's nature by your own. All women would not rise to such heights.' 'The woman that I loved would,' said the other confidently. 'You will have a chance of putting it to the test before long. If--if I am kept, it will be Lucy's love that will keep me; but if--if it happens again, it will be as you say--I shall have judged a woman's nature by my own.' The smile had faded from his face, and his eyes were cold and hard, and his lips were pressed tight together. It was not the same face that had smiled upon Eric when he came into the room.