and to give material as well as spiritual help to the people over whom my heart so strongly yearns. The good missionaries in India will, no doubt, call me a Buddhist, and include me in their labors. But perhaps I can love them into liking me enough to let me alone."
Here I threw the letter down. I could read no more. I buried my face in my hands. "Oh, my God!" I said, "to take that glorious girl to India, to kill her, body and soul!"
Whenever I had dared to picture to myself Ally's future as a wife, it had always been as the centre of a perfect home, surrounded by all that her rich nature craved and could use of beauty, of culture, of luxury. I had fancied the whole world itself laid under tribute for her growth, her joy, as I myself would have laid it had I won her love. Only too well I knew the uselessness of attempting to influence Jim when one of his sentiments had suddenly become a conviction and crystallized into a purpose.
"It is no use," I grieved. "He has taken India just as he took Ally—into his very heart of hearts. No earthly power could have moved him or can now."
I picked the letter up and read on.
"I have made all my arrangements to go in a month. Good-byes are hard, even when one has so few to say as I have. The sooner they are over the better. I have but one anxiety in going. Of
