kind of Titanic rage, that I should go down a beaten soul because I have not the iron strength of will to lash my own self to life, and tear out of my own heart a little of what power is in it.  At such times, Helen, I find just this one wish in my mind,—­that God would send to me, cost what it might, some of the fearful experience that rouses a man’s soul within him, and makes him live his life in spite of all his dullness and his fear.”

David had not finished, but he halted, because he saw a strange look upon the girl’s face.  She did not answer him at once, but sat gazing at him; and then she said in a very grave voice, “David, I do not like to hear such words as that from you.”

“What words, dearest?”

“Do you mean actually that it sometimes seems to you wrong to live happily with me as you have?”

David laid his hand quietly upon hers, watching for a minute her anxious countenance.  Then he said in a low voice:  “You ought not to ask me about such things, dear, or blame me for them.  Sometimes I have to face the very cruel thought that I ought not ever to have linked my fate to one so sweet and gentle as you, because what I ought to be doing in the world to win a right conscience is something so hard and so stern that it would mean that I could never be really happy all my life.”

David was about to go on, but he stopped again because of Helen’s look of displeasure.  “David,” she whispered, “that is the most unloving thing that I have ever heard from you!”

“And you must blame me, dear, because of it?” he asked.

“I suppose,” Helen answered, “that you would misunderstand me as long as I chose to let you.  Do you not suppose that I too have a conscience,—­do you suppose that I want any happiness it is wrong for us to take, or that I would not dare to go anywhere that your duty took you?  And do you suppose that anything could be so painful to me as to know that you do not trust me, that you are afraid to live your life, and do what is your duty, before me?”

David bent down suddenly and pressed a kiss upon the girl’s forehead.  “Precious little heart,” he whispered, “those words are very beautiful.”

“I did not say them because they were beautiful,” answered Helen gravely; “I said them because I meant them, and because I wanted you to take them in earnest.  I want to know what it is that you and I ought to be doing, instead of enjoying our lives; and after you have told me what it is I can tell you one thing—­that I shall not be happy again in my life until it is done.”

David watched her thoughtfully a while before he answered, because he saw that she was very much in earnest.  Then he said sadly, “Dearest Helen, perhaps the reason that I have never been able all through my life to satisfy my soul is the pitiful fact that I have not the strength to dare any of the work of other men; I have had always to chafe under the fact that I must choose between nourishing my poor body, or ceasing to live.  I have learned that all my power—­and more too, as it sometimes seemed,—­was needed to bear bravely the dreadful trials that God has sent to me.”