He had read the very inside of her heart, and knew that her only delight was in his love.

He understood perfectly the weakness and faith and beauty of her feminine nature, and her trusting, leaning softness was to his harder spirit as water to a thirsting man in the desert.

When she clung to him, promising to obey him in everything, the touch of her hands, and the sound of her voice, and the beseeching glance of her loving eyes, were food and drink to him.

He knew that her presence refreshed him and cooled him--made him young as he was growing old, and filled his mind with sweet thoughts which hardly came to him but when she was with him.

He had told himself over and over again that it must be good for him to have such a one for his wife, whether she were Jew or Christian.