"'Oh, Aubrey, be merciful—spare me all you can, for I am like a pilgrim who faints in sight of the Great Road. I know now that it is not the pulse of life, but the colour and the scent of it that make one's sacrifice. I believe that every guilty soul must have his moment of high opportunity—of expiation, and this is mine. You are brave, you are great, you are generous. Shall you tempt me—and stay; or will you save me—and go?'"
Poor Yeldham's voice broke to a hoarse whisper, and I laid a sympathetic hand upon his knee.
"And you, Aubrey, you went?"
"I am here," he answered, with a groan that was more pitiful than tears.
For Love or Science?
"This morn a throstle piped to me,
''Tis time that mates were wooed and won—
The daffodils are on the lea.'"
There is always a store of benevolence and magnanimity in the heart that beats at an altitude of nearly four feet from the ground. Wit, wisdom, and energy may go pit-a-pat "at the double" on lower levels, but great soulèdness and probity only come to their perfection in a steadier region.
Beyond these last-quoted virtues Ralph Danby had few. He was rather lethargic and decidedly clumsy. His six-feet-three of flesh and blood was knotty with muscle, but, in the garments of the polite, the muscularity showed like adipose tissue and spoilt him. In feature he was pronounced perfect.