"At any rate," she replied, "he has the madness of love. He is willing to give all, sacrifice all, risk all, for it. That is something anyhow. Mr. Erskine, will you not come back to the house again and plead with my father? He might listen to you. Do you not think you owe it to Hugh, since you came up with him?" Then her mood altered. "After all, what is the use of it? Life can never be anything but a promise of something which can never be fulfilled. But I love him for what he has done. I am prouder of my brother than ever. It is worth living to know that one whom one loves as a brother, has dared everything, and sacrificed everything, for his love."
A strange feeling possessed me; at that moment I thought I loved Isabella Lethbridge; felt that here, at least, was a woman who, in spite of her contradictions, in spite of the fact that she had repelled me, was worth the love of a lifetime. As I reflected upon it afterwards, however, I knew that I did not love her. Between my life and hers was a great impassable barrier. Besides, what right had I, a man with one foot in the grave, a man whose days were numbered, to think of such things?
Again there was a silence between us, and during that silence such a longing filled my life as I had never known before. I longed to live, to live on and on indefinitely. I hated the barriers by which I was bounded. My whole being revolted against the thought of death. At that moment, too, I felt as though there must be something for which I could find no better name than God Who was behind all things, Who made all things, Who thought all things. Why should that Infinity give me life, only to stamp it out, according to His caprice? Why should I be the subject of such a hideous mockery?
With the longing of life, too, came the longing for something even deeper. For the moment my mind was bounded by no barriers. I saw infinite possibility, possibility which transcended all thought and imagination. It seemed to me that if man were a child of God, he possessed something of God's life, lived in Him, was part of Him, that he shared in God's Infinity and Eternity.
Then I looked at the woman by my side, and as I did so she seemed to shrivel up. She was a thing of a day, of an hour. She did not seem to share in this Eternal Life of which I had been thinking. All the time she clutched my arm convulsively.
At that moment I heard footsteps on the drive, and saw Hugh Lethbridge coming towards us.
"Where are you going, Hugh?" I asked.
"Going!" he cried. "I am going to the only place a man can go at a time like this. I am going to my wife."
"Your father has said nothing more to you?"
"I have not seen him. He has not come to me, and I could not go to him; but I have seen mother. She knows, she understands."