Had he been the veriest outcast he would ever have found boundless welcome and solace waiting for him in her loving heart.
"John!" she whispered, and put out gentle fingers and caressed his hair.
He shivered and let his hands fall from his haggard face.
"Darling," he said, "I am not worthy to touch the hem of your garment.
Why do you not turn from such a weakling and brute ?" "Hush! Hush," she exclaimed, aghast.

"You must not speak so of yourself.
I love you always, as you know, and I cannot hear him whom I love abused." And now he looked into her eyes while he took her slender hand, and there he saw the same wells of purity and devotion brimming with divine faith and tenderness that he had last seen glistening with happy love.
He folded her to his heart; the passionate emotion each was feeling was too deep, too sacred for words; and then their eyes streamed with scorching tears.
They sat thus close for some seconds.

The thirst and hunger of all these days of rack and anguish must be assuaged before either could talk.

But at last she drew a little back and looked up into his face.
"John," she said softly, "I read in an English paper a week ago that your wedding was fixed for the seventh of October--my birthday.

Is it the truth ?" He clasped his hands in agony.
"It can never now be so," he said.