married he might have been ere now, and could be still, for she was waiting--only--an ideal stood in his way. Whom he would marry he would love. Not merely respect or like,--not even both,--but love he must; and in order to hold to this ideal he must fly the country, or remain to be unduly urged to his own discomfiture and possibly to their mutual undoing.
As for the alternatives, the army or the navy, again his ideals had formed for him impassable bars. He would found his career on the saving rather than the taking of life. Perhaps he might yet follow in the wake of armies to mend bodies they have torn and cut and maimed, and heal diseases they have engendered--yes--perhaps--the ideals loomed big. But what had he done? Fled his country and deftly avoided the most heart-satisfying of human delights--children to call him father, and wife to make him a home; peace and wealth; thrust aside the helping hand to power and a career considered most worthy of a strong and resourceful man, and thrown personal ambition to the winds. Why? Because of his ideals--preferring to mend rather than to mar his neighbor.
Surely he was right--and yet--and yet. What had he accomplished? Taken the making of his life into his own hands and lost--all--if health were really gone. One thing remained to him--the last rag and remnant of his cherished ideals--to live long enough to triumph over his own disease and take up work again. Why should he succumb? Was it fate? Was there the guidance of a higher will? Might he reach out and partake of the Divine power? But one thing he knew; but one thing could he do. As the glory of white light around him served to reveal a