"I cannot quite understand"--in a curious dreamy tone, still spelled by the mastery of impassioned emotion--"how you could miss loving Sylvie; how she, woman-like, could help adoring you for your strength and heroism. Jack, if I were a woman, your very power would compel me to worship you. I should love you, whether or no." Jack gave a bright, cheerful laugh. "It is that kind of strength you like in Sylvie," he made answer. "She will always spur a man up to his best. Her well-trained ear is quick to detect a false note in honor, ambition, or love. She will never be any kind of dead weight, and yet she is so deliciously womanly. There was a time--don't be vexed, Fred,"--in a tender, pleading tone,--"when I thought you were not going to be worthy of her. But that is past." "She rejected me then," Fred Lawrence said simply. "I offered her my father's wealth, the home he had made, my own folly and arrogance and self-conceit; and then, Jack, she boldly admitted that you were her hero! When I consider the sort of man my training and surroundings made me, I am filled with disgust. And yet I was no worse than hundreds of others at the present day. When I look at my mother, Irene, and myself, I feel that we were the product of the so-called culture of the day, which substitutes shallow creeds, conventional manners, and systems, for all that is pure, strong, and noble in manhood or womanhood. It is the sort of Greek temperament on which we pride our intellectual selves. We revel in a glowing, sensuous enjoyment, that intoxicates the brain, and leads us to disdain the real work of the world. We are trained to consider what society demands of us; we are polished and refined, and in too many instances left morally weak and ignorant. No wonder so many of us have not the strength to buffet across the stormy sea of hard experience, but are lost in the great whirlpool!" Jack peered into the pale, handsome face by the faint light. Surely this man had to make a tremendous effort for salvation, when nearly every tide had been against him! He experienced a keener sympathy than he could express; he drew the arm within his, and they paced up and down again in silence, understanding dimly the sacred mysteries of each other's hearts, that needed not to be dragged to open day for inspection. In a pure friendship, faith is the highest element: with that there is supreme content; without it, distrust gnaws like a canker-worm. They heard the little church-clock striking ten, and turned their steps toward the house. On the porch, Fred paused a moment, while an icy fear seemed to wring every pulse. He turned cold with apprehension. "What if I have been deluding myself!" he cried with sudden intensity. "Even if you and she could not love, she may have no such regard for me as I desire. I could not endure her pity." A warm, hopeful, generous smile illumined Jack Darcy's face. His hand thrilled with an electric force and sympathy.