"What right have you or I to ask that question?" he retorted sternly.
"I do penance for loving her, and God is my witness how carefully I
have hidden it. It is not for me to question her right to love if she
please."

Philip rose, and went to the other, holding out his hand.

"Mr. Candish," said he earnestly, "you have taught me my lesson. I
have been a weak fool, and worse. I will pray for strength to lay my
passion on the altar and forget it."

The rector took the extended hand, looking into Philip's eyes with a
glance so wistful, so humble, and so tender that the remembrance went
with Ashe long.

"And forget it?" he repeated. "I do not know that I could do that!"

He dropped the hand of Ashe, and shook himself as if he would shake off
the mood which had taken possession of him.

"Come," he declared resolutely, "this will not do. This is not the sort
of mood that makes men. Let me give you a single piece of advice,--I am
older, you know; don't pity yourself, whatever else you do. In the
first place, that would be equivalent to saying that Providence doesn't
know what is best for you; and in the second, it spoils all one's sense
of values."

As Ashe that afternoon journeyed down to Montfield, he recalled all the
details of this interview. The more he considered the more he respected