"Oh yes, madam, and that is the sad part of it."
"And that but for Charles's secret trouble they would be married?"
"Yes, madam. I have no doubt of it."
"Thank you, Michael. You may have done him a great service by—by going to see him when you did. I mean," she added, starting as from some inner fear, "that reaching him just when you did with that money—"
"Oh yes, madam, Mr. Charles spoke of that a dozen times. You see, as I have tried to explain, it lifted a load from the young lady."
"I understand that," Celeste said, musingly. "And she is very pretty and sweet and gentle, you say?"
"She is everything a lady ought to be, madam, and, oh, I must say my heart ached for her, too, for I could see how she felt about him. She is full of spirit. She is the kind that would fight for a man to the last ditch and drop of blood. But, oh, madam, it seemed so sad! There he was in a farmer's clothes, his hands as hard as stone, and she—why, madam, he treated her like she was a princess of royal rank, and all the time with that old, sad look he used to have when he was scolding himself to me after one of his little sprees around town. Almost the last thing he said to me, madam, was that when he had helped her all he could he intended to slip away, for her own good, and take up his life somewhere else among strangers. It was then, madam, I assure you, that I almost lost my religion. I've been taught, madam, from my mother's knee—and she is a saint, if one ever lived—I say I've been taught that our Saviour died to help men who repent, and there was Mr. Charles bowed down like that without a hand held out to him. He gave up all he loved here—you, the little girl—his 'Sunbeam,' as he called her down there—and his brother, and now, when he has found some one that he loves, he must give her up also and start to roving again. I shed tears. I couldn't help it, and it moved him. I could see that. We were in my room at the hotel. His face turned dark as he sat there on my bed trying to be calm. He stood up and shook himself and smiled. 'Mike,' he said, 'nothing counts that we do for ourselves. It is only by forgetting ourselves and helping others that we accomplish anything worth while.'"
"Thank you, Michael, I'll see you again soon," Celeste said, moving toward the door.