"Yes, we all are worth it."
"I am not," gasped Sir Thorald. "Jack, you are good. Do you believe, at least, that I loved her?"
"Yes, if you say so."
"I do—in the shadow of death."
Jack was silent.
"I never loved—before," said Sir Thorald.
In the stillness that followed Jack tried to comprehend the good or evil in this stricken man. He could not; he only knew that a great love that a man might bear a woman made necessary a great sacrifice if that love were unlawful. The greater the love the more certain the sacrifice—self-sacrifice on the altar of unselfish love, for there is no other kind of love that man may bear for woman.
It wearied Jack to try to think it out. He could not; he only knew that it was not his to judge or to condemn.
"Will you give me your hand?" asked Sir Thorald.
Jack laid his hand in the other's feverish one.