She retreated, catching her breath; and in the shadows of the empty room she sank into his arms.

In the crucible of that embrace all things melted and changed.

His hesitations and doubts, all that hampered his free will and purpose, whether it were the sorrows and humiliations of the past--or the compunctions and demurs of the present--dropped away from him, as unworthy not of himself, but of Elizabeth.

She had made him master of herself, and her fate; and he boldly and loyally took up the part.

He had refused to become the mere appanage of her life, because he was already pledged to that great idea he called his country.