Her grip upon his hand did not tighten in the least.  “Yes,” she could say honestly, “it has altogether passed away.”

“And you have no more fear?”

“No, none.”

It was his great reward for all that he had done for Grizel.

“I know what you are thinking of,” she said, when he did not speak.  “You are thinking of the haunted little girl you rescued seven years ago.”

“No,” he answered; “I was thanking God for the brave, wholesome woman she has grown into; and for something else, Grizel—­for letting me live to see it.”

“To do it,” she said, pressing his hand to her breast.

She was a strange girl, and she had to speak her mind.  “I don’t think God has done it all,” she said.  “I don’t even think that He told you to do it.  I think He just said to you, ’There is a painted lady’s child at your door.  You can save her if you like.’

“No,” she went on, when he would have interposed; “I am sure He did not want to do it all.  He even left a little bit of it to me to do myself.  I love to think that I have done a tiny bit of it myself.  I think it is the sweetest thing about God that He lets us do some of it ourselves.  Do I hurt you, darling?”

No, she did not hurt him, for he understood her.  “But you are naturally so impulsive,” he said, “it has often been a sharp pain to me to see you so careful.”

“It was not a pain to me to be careful; it was a joy.  Oh, the thousand dear, delightful joys I have had with you!”

“It has made you strong, Grizel, and I rejoice in that; but sometimes I fear that it has made you too difficult to win.”

“I don’t want to be won,” she told him.

“You don’t quite mean that, Grizel.”

“No,” she said at once.  She whispered to him impulsively:  “It is the only thing I am at all afraid of now.”

“What?”

“Love.”

“You will not be afraid of it when it comes.”

“But I want to be afraid,” she said.

“You need not,” he answered.  “The man on whom those clear eyes rest lovingly will be worthy of it all.  If he were not, they would be the first to find him out.”

“But need that make any difference?” she asked.  “Perhaps though I found him out I should love him just the same.”

“Not unless you loved him first, Grizel.”

“No,” she said at once again.  “I am not really afraid of love,” she whispered to him.  “You have made me so happy that I am afraid of nothing.”

Yet she wondered a little that he was not afraid to die, but when she told him this he smiled and said:  “Everybody fears death except those who are dying.”  And when she asked if he had anything on his mind, he said:  “I leave the world without a care.  Not that I have seen all I would fain have seen.  Many a time, especially this last year, when I have seen the mother in you crooning to some neighbour’s child, I have thought to myself, ’I don’t know my Grizel yet; I have seen her in the bud only,’ and I would fain—­” He broke off.  “But I have no fears,” he said.  “As I lie here, with you sitting by my side, looking so serene, I can say, for the first time for half a century, that I have nothing on my mind.