"Dear Elizabeth, I have a confession to make.

In those old unhappy days I used to wonder how you could care so much for him.

He was good and true and earnest, and he loved you dearly; but all the same I could not understand." "Dinah and Mrs.Godfrey could not understand either," she replied gently; "but you none of you knew my David: it made me a better woman only to be near him.

His father has just the same simple, guileless nature--my two Nathanaels I used to call them." "Dear, I understand better now," returned Malcolm kindly; "but I ask myself, could I have done the same in his place?
I fear--I greatly fear, my love is not so selfless.

If I had to die and leave you--" but Elizabeth would not listen to this.
"If you had been in his place you would have been equally generous; I know your good heart far too well to doubt that, Malcolm." Elizabeth was a tall woman, and as she bent involuntarily towards him, her cheek rested for a moment against his; that simple womanly caress seemed to set the seal to her sacred confidence.