"What glorified prevaricators these men are, Grace, are they not?" said Rose.
"O, Rose!" said Grace. "The mission of woman is to suffer and be devoted in her suffering, and how could we carry out our mission if all men were good, and had good memories, and did not run away to Africa and Venezuela and Australia, and come home with fevers, and—and—." Then she kissed Sedgwick, and jumping up caught Rose by the arm, and said: "Let us punish them by running away from them."
As they walked away Sedgwick watched them, and when they turned a corner of the veranda, said: "Jack, would you give the year's happiness just past for all the gold in Africa?"
"No, indeed," was the reply; "but you had the strength to leave your bride on your marriage day for a chance of gaining a little of that gold."
"O, no, old friend," said Sedgwick. "We had enough money left, but there was a principle at stake. I went to vindicate that principle if I could."
"Pardon me, Jim," said Jack. "But you were stronger than I could have been. I could not have left my bride then. I had waited so long, that to have parted then would have broken her heart and would have destroyed me."
"I realized all that, Jack," said his friend; "so did Grace, and we both sympathized with you both, and decided that the cup of bitterness must be turned from you."
"Of course," said Jack. "What you did was jolly grand; what you have done has been so splendid that I cannot express my thoughts of it yet; I can't, by Jove! And Gracie's part through all has been superb. I think, too, your sick friend has been pure gold through it all."
"Pure diamonds rather," said Sedgwick. "O Jack, you do not half comprehend the grandeur of that sterling man. When his heart was slowly shriveling up in his breast, he forgot himself and his sorrow to cheer me, and when it was necessary to go for the machinery, he insisted that I should go, and he, of his own accord, went back to the depths of that South Land wilderness and worked uncomplainingly for months. No grander man ever lived."