Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/260

250 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