"One talks of the spiritual side remaining untouched," he said,
"yet how is it ever to be otherwise than chained and fettered,
while such men as that Randolph are recognized as the champions of
our cause, while injustice and unkindness meet her at every turn,
while it is something rare and extraordinary for a Christian to
speak a kind word to her. If today she has first realized that
Christians need not necessarily behave as brutes, I have realized
a little what life is from her point of view."

"Then, realizing that perhaps you may help her, perhaps another
chapter of the old legend may come true, and you may be the means
of waking the spirit in your Undine."

"I? Oh, no! How can you think of it! You or Donovan, perhaps,
but even that idea seems to me wildly improbable."

There was something in his humility and sadness which touched his
father inexpressibly.

"Well, he said, after a pause, "if you are really prepared for all
the suffering this love must bring you, if you mean to take it, and
cherish it, and live for it, even though it brings you no gain, but
apparent pain and loss, then I think it can only raise both you and
your Undine."

Brian knew that not one man in a thousand would have spoken in such
a way; his father's unworldliness was borne in upon him as it had
never been before. Greatly as he had always reverenced and loved
him, tonight his love and reverence deepened unspeakably--the two