"Good boy," said Deryck Brand, laughing. "You were vastly misunderstood, but I believe you." "You see," resumed Garth, "that sort of thing being merely skin-deep, I went no deeper. The only women I really knew were my mother, who died when I was nineteen, and Margery Graem, whom I always hugged at meeting and parting, and always shall hug until I kiss the old face in its coffin, or she straightens me in mine. Those ties of one's infancy and boyhood are among the closest and most sacred life can show. Well, so things were until a certain evening in June several years ago. She--the One Woman--and I were in the same house party at a lovely old place in the country. One afternoon we had been talking intimately, but quite casually and frankly. I had no more thought of wanting to marry her than of proposing to old Margery. Then--something happened,--I must not tell you what; it would give too clear a clue to her identity. But it revealed to me, in a few marvellous moments, the woman in her; the wife, the mother; the strength, the tenderness; the exquisite perfection of her true, pure soul. In five minutes there awakened in me a hunger for her which nothing could still, which nothing ever will still, until I stand beside her in the Golden City, where they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; and there shall be no more darkness, or depending upon sun, moon, or candle, for the glory of God shall lighten it; and there shall be no more sorrow, neither shall there be any more pain, for former things shall have passed away." The blind face shone in the firelight. Garth's retrospection was bringing him visions of things to come. The doctor sat quite still and watched the vision fade. Then he said: "Well?" "Well," continued the young voice in the shadow, with a sound in it of having dropped back to earth and finding it a mournful place; "I never had a moment's doubt as to what had happened to me. I knew I loved her; I knew I wanted her; I knew her presence made my day and her absence meant chill night; and every day was radiant, for she was there." Garth paused for breath and to enjoy a moment of silent retrospection. The doctor's voice broke in with a question, clear, incisive. "Was she a pretty woman; handsome, beautiful?" "A pretty woman?" repeated Garth, amazed: "Good heavens, no! Handsome? Beautiful? Well you have me there, for, 'pon my honour, I don't know." "I mean, would you have wished to paint her?" "I HAVE painted her," said Garth very low, a moving tenderness in his voice; "and my two paintings of her, though done in sadness and done from memory, are the most beautiful work I ever produced. No eye but my own has ever seen them, and now none ever will see them, excepting those of one whom I must perforce trust to find them for me, and bring them to me for destruction." "And that will be--?" queried the doctor. "Nurse Rosemary Gray," said Garth.