"Oh, but that is simply morbid, and the result of your long illness. You will not feel that way long." "I hope not. The work is crying to be done. Perhaps, after all, I shall be able to help it more above ground than below." "Of course you will. Don't you find it dreadfully lonely out there, with none but black people about you?" "They are very fine people, some of them. And the loneliness only nails one the tighter to the work. Besides there are----" "Has it never struck you that you might possibly help it quite as much by remaining here as by going out again?" Oh, Jean! Jean! "Never," he said, with a slight flush. "My work lies there, and I hope to give my life to it, and to give it up for it if need be, as my dear old friend gave his." "But there are others who could do the work just as well, are there not?" "Many, I hope. I hope many will." "And, if I understand aright, Missionary Societies are always short of funds, and the work is hindered, or at all events progresses more slowly, in consequence." "I have my own views as to that," he said quietly. "Won't you tell me what they are? I am greatly interested." "They are not shared by many of my friends, and I do not obtrude them. I believe that the work is God's work, and when He sees fit to provide larger ways and means, larger ways and means will be forthcoming. If we had all the money we wanted, we might lose our heads, and go ahead too fast--scamp the work perhaps, and prove but jerry-builders in the end. One cannot forget that it has taken Christianity eighteen hundred years to arrive at its present position, and that for long periods it lay almost dormant; whereas, if the Founder had deemed it best to accomplish the work at one stroke, He could have done it." "Yes," she said thoughtfully. "I don't think I ever looked at it in that light before. And you are quite determined to go back?" "Quite determined--only too grateful for the chance." "And nothing would keep you here?" "Nothing that I can imagine--except absolute incapacity for the work." "You would not stop even if"--and she bent forward, with hands tightly clasped to prevent them jumping visibly before him, and eyes that shone like stars. God! how beautiful she was!--"if I begged you to do so?" He jumped up hastily. "If you----? If you begged me to--what?" And her bright eyes, fixed intently on his lean face, caught the sudden fierce clench of the teeth inside, which threw the cheek-bones into bolder prominence. She noted it--she could almost hear the grinding of his teeth; and the game was in her hands. She had the advantage of understanding what the game was, while he was completely in the dark. He stood gazing down at her for a moment, and then said more quietly-- "I'm afraid I don't quite understand. Perhaps my illness has dulled my brain somewhat."