as anxiously as if he were hastening to the death-bed of his nearest
relative, Guy took the very next train down to Quebec, resolving
silently to spend every exertion he was capable of in this precious
duty, or die.

In the fiercest battles of our daily lives, there are only two incitants
which can never fail to give our heart a hope, our hope a courage, our
courage a strength, and our strength whatever possible success can be
wrung from fate under such circumstances; these are, the two great
influences of hatred--and of love. There is no strength so fierce, so
terrible as the hater's, just as there is no strength so steady, so
hopeful, so ambitious, as that which guides the lover's hand. We would
do a great many hard and trying things for our love's sake, but those
things which the righteous could never do--even for their love--are the
better sweets of an active hatred. Love has its limits, but hatred--its
only sweetness is its infinity, its boundless freedom, and its endless
resources.

There was something of both these stimulants pressing Guy Elersley
onward to determined action. All the mighty strength of years of subdued
love and sincerest devotion spurred him hopefully on, and all the
crushing power of a few days' hatred goaded him on to merciless action.
He stowed away that other every-day life of his, and assumed this new
phase of his existence dutifully and well. The reward stood in the
distance, smiling and beckoning, though 'tis true that his eyes could
only discover the familiar outlines of his heart's idol through the
doubtful mists of the "possible", but it were as well to spend his
pent-up emotions in this way as have them crushed from his heart by a
merciless blow of fate, in bitter disappointment.