feeling swept over David, drowned him in its impulse and pent-up force.

"Is there none that thou lovest so--" Of what use had been all his
struggle and his pain since that last day in Hamley--his dark fighting
days in the desert with Lacey and Mahommed, and his handful of faithful
followers, hemmed in by dangers, the sands swarming with Arabs who
feathered now to his safety, now to his doom, and his heart had hungered
for what he had denied it with a will that would not be conquered?
Wasted by toil and fever and the tension of danger and the care of
others dependent on him, he had also fought a foe which was ever at his
elbow, ever whispered its comfort and seduction in his ear, the insidious
and peace-giving, exalting opiate that had tided him over some black
places, and then had sought for mastery of him when he was back again in
the world of normal business and duty, where it appealed not as a
medicine, but as a perilous luxury. And fighting this foe, which had a
voice so soothing, and words like the sound of murmuring waters, and a
cool and comforting hand that sought to lead him into gardens of
stillness and passive being, where he could no more hear the clangour and
vexing noises of a world that angered and agonised, there had also been
the lure of another passion of the heart, which was too perilously dear
to contemplate. Eyes that were beautiful, and their beauty was not for
him; a spirit that was bright and glowing, but the brightness and the
glow might not renew his days. It was hard to fight alone. Alone he
was, for only to one may the doors within doors be opened-only to one so
dear that all else is everlastingly distant may the true tale of the life
beneath life be told. And it was not for him--nothing of this; not even
the thought of it; for to think of it was to desire it, and to desire it
was to reach out towards it; and to reach out towards it was the end of
all. There had been moments of abandonment to the alluring dream, such
as when he wrote the verses which Lacey had sent to Hylda from the