You bear your hard life so uncomplainingly, so bravely, that it seems as if you could not have a vestige of selfishness in you; and yet"-- Mercy halted; she could not put her thought in words.

Stephen finished it for her.
"And yet," he said, "I am selfish about you, you think.

Selfish! Good God! do you call it selfishness in a man who is drowning, to try to swim, in a man who is starving, to clutch a morsel of bread?
What else have I that one could call life except you?
Tell me, Mercy! You are my life: that is the whole of it.

All that a man has he will give for his life.

Is it selfishness ?" Stephen locked his hands tight together, and looked at Mercy almost angrily.