"How I dread the day," continued Garth, "when you will come and say to me: 'I have to go.' And, do you know, I have sometimes thought--you have done so much for me and become so much to me--I have sometimes thought--I can tell you frankly now--it might have seemed as if there were a very obvious way to try to keep you always. You are so immensely worthy of all a man could offer, of all the devotion a man could give. And because, to one so worthy, I never could have offered less than the best, I want to tell you that in my heart I hold shrined forever one beloved face. All others are gradually fading. Now, in my blindness, I can hardly recall clearly the many lovely faces I have painted and admired. All are more or less blurred and indistinct. But this one face grows clearer, thank God, as the darkness deepens. It will be with me through life, I shall see it in death, THE FACE OF THE WOMAN I LOVE. You said 'loved' of your lover, hesitating to be sure of his present state of heart. I can neither say 'love' nor 'loved' of my beloved. She never loved me. But I love her with a love which makes it impossible for me to have any 'best' to offer to another woman. If I could bring myself, from unworthy motives and selfish desires, to ask another to wed me, I should do her an untold wrong. For her unseen face would be nothing to me; always that one and only face would be shining in my darkness. Her voice would be dear, only in so far as it reminded me of the voice of the woman I love. Dear friend, if you ever pray for me, pray that I may never be so base as to offer to any woman such a husk as marriage with me would mean." "But--" said Nurse Rosemary. "She--she who has made it a husk for others; she who might have the finest of the wheat, the full corn in the ear, herself?" "She," said Garth, "has refused it. It was neither fine enough nor full enough. It was not worthy. O my God, little girl--! What it means, to appear inadequate to the woman one loves!" Garth dropped his face between his hands with a groan. Silence unbroken reigned in the library. Suddenly Garth began to speak, low and quickly, without lifting his head.