Finally it seemed to Corydon that she was getting nearer--nearer to
something, she knew not what. The blackness about her seemed to
condense, and she found herself in what was apparently the middle of
a lake, and some dark bodies with arms were trying to drag her down.
"No, no," she willed to these forms, "you _shall_ not. I do not
belong here, I belong up--up!" And by a violent effort she
escaped--into sensations yet more agonizing, more acute. The
vibrations were getting faster and faster, whirling her along,
stretching her consciousness to pieces. "Will it never end?" she
thought. "Have mercy!" But after an eternity of such repetition, she
found a bright light staring at her, and a frightful sense of
heaviness, like mountains piled upon her. Also, eating her up from
head to foot, was a strange, unusual pain; yes, it must be pain,
though she had never felt anything like it before. She moaned; and
there came a spasm of nausea, that seemed to tear her asunder.

The doctor was standing by her. "She gave me quite a fright," he was
saying. "There, that's it, nurse. She'll be sleeping sweetly in a
minute." The nurse hurried forward, and Corydon felt a stinging
sensation in her side, and then a delightful numbness crept over
her. "Oh, thank you, doctor," she whispered.

Section 5. The next week held for Corydon continuous suffering,
which she bore with a rebellious defiance--feeling that she had
been betrayed in some way. "If you had only told me," she wailed, to
the doctor. "I would rather have stayed as I was before!" For answer
he would pat her cheek and tell her to go to sleep.

The days dragged on. Every afternoon her mother came and read to her
for several hours; and in the afternoons Mr. Harding would come, and
sit by her bedside in his kind way and talk to her. Sometimes he
only stayed a few minutes, but often he would spend an hour or so,
trying to dispel the clouds of gloom and despondency that were
hanging over her. Corydon told him of her vision in the
operating-room, and strange to say he declared that he had known it
all; also he said that he had helped her to fight her way back to
life.

He seemed to understand her every need, and from his sympathy gave
her all the comfort he could. But he little realized all that it
meant to her--how deeply it stirred her gratitude and her liking for
him. During the day she would find herself counting the hours until
the time he had named; and when the expected knock would come, and
his tall figure appear at the door, her heart would give a sudden
jump and send the blood rushing to her head. Her lips would tremble
slightly as she held out her hand to him; and as he sat and looked
at her, she would become uncomfortably conscious of the beating of
her heart; in fact at times it would almost suffocate her, and her
cheeks would become as fire.

She wondered if he noticed it. But he seemed concerned only for her
welfare, and anxiously inquired how she felt. She was not doing
well, it seemed, and the doctor was greatly troubled; her
temperature had not become normal since the operation, and they
could not account for it, as she was suffering no more than the
usual amount of pain. To Corydon this was a matter of no importance;
she was willing to lie there all day, if only the hour of Mr.
Harding's visit would come more quickly. She was beginning to be
alarmed because she had such difficulty in controlling her
excitement.

The magic hour would strike, and the door of hope open, and there
upon the threshold he would appear, in all his superb manhood.
Corydon thought she had never before met a man who gave her such an
impression of vitality. He was splendid; he was like a young Viking,
who brought into the room with him the pure air of the Northern
mountains. When he looked at her, his eyes assumed a wonderful
expression, a "golden" expression, as Corydon described it to
herself. And day after day she clothed this Viking in more lustrous
garments, woven from the threads of her imagination, her innermost
desires and her dreams. And always at sight of him, her heart beat
faster, her head became hotter; until the bed she lay upon became a
bed of burning coals. She realized at last what had happened to her,
that she loved--yes, that she loved! But she must not let her Viking
see it; that would be unpardonable, it would damn her forever in his
sight. And so she struggled with her secret. At night she slept in
fitful starts, and in the morning she lay pale and sombre. But when
he came she was all brilliancy and animation.

Section 6. Each night the doctor would look anxiously at his
thermometer; it was a source of great worry to him and to Corydon's
parents that the fever did not abate. Also, needless to say, the
news worried Thyrsis; all the more, because it meant a long stay in
the hospital, and more of their money gone. At last he came up to
town to see about it; and Corydon thought to herself, "This is very
wrong of me. It is Thyrsis I ought to be interested in, it is his
sympathy I ought to be craving."

She brought the image of Thyrsis before her; it seemed vague and
unreal. She found that she remembered mostly the unattractive
aspects of him. And this brought a pang to her. "He is good and
noble," she told herself; she forced herself to think of generous
things that he had done.

He came; and then she felt still more ashamed. He had been working
very hard, and was pale and haggard; it was becoming to him to be
that way. Recollections came back to her in floods; yes, he was
truly good and noble!

He sat by her bedside, and she told him about the operation, and
poured out the hunger of her soul to him. He stayed all the morning
with her, and he came again and spent the afternoon with her. He
read to her and kissed her and soothed her--his influence was very
calming, she found. After he had gone for the night, Corydon lay
thinking, "I still love him!"

How strange it was that she could love two men at once! It was
surely very wrong! She would never have dreamed that she, Corydon,
could do such a thing. She thought of Harry Stuart, and of the
unacknowledged thrill of excitement which his presence had brought
to her. "And now here it is again," she mused--"only this time it is
worse! What _can_--be the matter with me?"

Then she wondered, "Do I really love Mr. Harding? Haven't I got over
it now?" But the least thinking of him sufficed to set her heart to
thumping again; and so she shrunk from that train of thought. She
wanted to love her husband.

He came again the next morning, and Corydon found that she was very
happy in his presence. Her fever was slightly lower, and she
thought, "I will get well quickly now."

But alas, she had reckoned in this without Thyrsis! To sit in the
hospital all day was a cruel strain upon him; the more so as he had
been entirely unprepared for it. Corydon had assured him that the
operation would be nothing, and that she would not need him; and so
he had just finished a harrowing piece of labor on the book. Now to
stay all day and witness her struggle, to satisfy her craving for
sympathy and to meet and wrestle with her despair--it was like
having the last drops of his soul-energy squeezed out of him. He did
not know what was troubling Corydon, but the _rapport_ between them
was so close, that he knew she was in some distress of mind.

He stood the ordeal as long as he could, and then he had to beg for
respite. Cedric was down on the farm, with no one but the servants
to care for him; so he would go back, and see that everything was
all right, and after he had rested up for two or three days, he
would come again. Corydon smiled faintly and assented--for that
morning she had received a note from Mr. Harding, saying that he
would be in town the next day, and would call.

So Thyrsis went away, and Corydon lay and thought the problem over
again. "Yes, I love my husband; but it's such an effort for him to
love me! And why should that be? I don't believe it would be such an
effort for Mr. Harding to love me!"

So again she was seized by the thought of the young clergyman. And
she was astonished at the difference in her feelings--the flood of
emotion that swept over her. Her heart began to beat fast and her
cheeks once more to burn. He was coming up to the city on purpose,
this time; it must be that he wanted to see her very much!

That night was an especially hard one for her; she felt as though
the frail shell that held her were breaking, as though her endurance
were failing altogether. The fever had risen, and her bed had seemed
like the burning arms of Moloch. Once she imagined that the room was
stifling her, and in a sudden frenzy of impatience she struggled
upon one elbow and flung her pillow across the room. In that instant
she had noticed a new and sharp pain in her side; it did not leave
her, though at the time she thought little about it.

She was all absorbed in the coming of Mr. Harding; by the time
morning had come she had made up her mind that her one hope of
deliverance was in confession. She must tell him, she must make
known to him her love; and he would forgive her, and then her heart
would not beat so violently at sight of him, her fever would abate
and she might rest.

But when he sat there, talking to her, and looking so beautiful and
so strange, she trembled, and made half a dozen vain efforts to
begin. Finally she asked, "Have you ever read that poem of Heine's--
'Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen, Die hat einen Andern erwählt?'"

"Oh, yes," he answered; then they were silent again. Finally Corydon
nerved herself to yet another effort. "Mr. Harding," she said, "will
you come a little nearer, please. I have something very important to
say to you." And then, waveringly and brokenly, now in agonized
abashment, now rushing ahead as she felt his encouragement and
sympathy, she gave him the whole story of her suffering and its
cause. When she came to the words "because I love you", she closed
her eyes and her spirit sank back with a great gasp of relief.

When she opened them again, his head was bowed in his hands and he
did not move. "Mr. Harding," she whispered, "Mr. Harding, you
forgive me, do you not? You do not hate me?"

He roused himself with an effort. "Dear child," said he, and as he
looked at her she thought she had never seen a face so sad, so
exquisite--"it is I who ask forgiveness."

He rose and came to her bedside, and took her hand in both of his.
"It would not be right for me to say to you what you have said to
me. We must not speak of this any more. You will promise me this,
and then you will rest, and to-morrow you will be better. Soon you
will be well; and how glad your husband will be--and all of us."

With that he pressed her hand firmly, and left the room; and Corydon
turned her face to the wall, and whispered happily to herself, "Yes,
he loves me, he loves me! And now I shall rest!"

Section 7. For a while she slept the sleep of exhaustion, nor did
there fall across her dreams the shadow of the angel of fate who was
even then placing his mark upon her forehead. Toward morning she was
awakened suddenly with the sharp pain in her side; but it abated
presently, and Corydon thought blissfully of the afternoon before.
He would come again to her, she would see him that very day; and so
what did pain matter? She was really happy at last. But as the day
advanced, she became uneasy; her fever had not diminished, and the
pain was becoming more persistent.

The nurse was anxious, too. Her mother came and regarded her in
alarm. But she was thinking of Mr. Harding. He was coming; he might
arrive at any moment.

There was a knock upon the door. Corydon's pulse fluttered, and she
whispered, "Here he is!" She could scarcely speak the words, "Come
in". But when the door opened, she saw that it was the doctor. Her
heart sank, and she closed her eyes with a moan of pain. Could it be
that he was not coming? Could it be that she had been mistaken--that
he did not love her after all? She must see him--she must! She could
not endure this suspense; she could not endure these interruptions
by other people.

The doctor came and sat by her. "I must see what is the matter
here," he said. "Why do you not get well, Corydon?"

He questioned her carefully and looked grave. "I must have a
consultation at once," he said.

Corydon's hand caught at his sleeve. "No, no!" she whispered.

"Don't be afraid," said the doctor. "It won't hurt."

"It isn't that," said Corydon. She all but added, "I must see Mr.
Harding!"

She was wheeled into the operating-room, but this time there was no
interest in her eyes as she regarded the smooth table and the
shining instruments. As they lifted her upon it, she shuddered. "Oh
I cannot, I cannot!" she wailed.

"There, there," said the doctor. "Be brave. We wish simply to see
what the matter is. It won't take long."

And they put the cone to her mouth. Corydon struggled and gasped,
but it was no use, she was in the clutches of the fiend again; only
this time there was no ecstasy, and no vision of Mr. Harding.
Instead there was instant and sickening suffocation. Again she
descended into the uttermost depths of the inferno; and it seemed as
though this time the brave will was not equal to the battle before
it.

The surgeons made their examination, and they discovered more
diseased tissue, and a slowly spreading infection. So there was
nothing for it but to operate again--they held a quick consultation,
and then went ahead. And afterwards they labored and sweated, and by
dint of persistent effort, and every device at their command, they
fanned into life once more the faint spark in the ashen-grey form
that lay before them. But it was a feeble flame they got; as
Corydon's eyelids fluttered, the only sign of recognition that came
from her lips was a moan, and from her eyes a look of dazed
stupidity. But there was hope for her life, the doctors said; and
they sent a telegram which Thyrsis got three days later, when he had
fought his way to the town through five miles of heavy snow-drifts.

Meantime the grim fight for life was going on. In the morning
Corydon opened her eyes to a burning torture, the racked and twisted
nerves quivering in rebellion. It did not come in twinges of pain,
it was a slow, deadening, persistent agony, that pervaded every inch
of her body. She wondered how she could bear it, how she could live.
And yet, strangely, inexplicably, she wanted to live. She did not
know why--she had been outraged, she had been deserted by all, she
was but a feeble atom of determination in the centre of a hostile
universe. And yet she would pit her will against them all, God, man,
and devil; they should not conquer her, she would win out.

So she would clench her teeth together and fight. For hours she
would stare at the wall, the blank, unresponsive, formless wall
before her; and then, when the shadows of the evening fell, and they
saw she was fainting from exhaustion, they would come with the
needle of oblivion, and the dauntless soul would die for the night,
and return in the morning to its pitiless task.

Section 8. Thyrsis received a couple of letters at the same time as
the telegram, and he took the next train for the city. It is said
that a drowning man sees before him in a few moments the panorama of
his whole life; but to Thyrsis were given three hours in which to
recall the events of his love for Corydon. He had every reason to
believe that he would find her dying; and such pangs of suffering as
came to him he had never known before. He was in a crowded car, and
he would not shed a tear; but he sat, crouched in a heap and staring
before him, fairly quivering with pent-up and concentrated grief.
God, how he loved her! What a spirit of pure flame she was--what a
creature from another sky! What martyrdom she had dared for him, and
how cruelly she had been punished for her daring! And now, this was
the end; she was dying--perhaps dead! How was he to live without
her--in the bare and barren future that he saw stretching out before
him?

Flashes of memory would come to him, waves of torment roll over
him. He would recall her gestures, the curves of her face, the tones
of her voice, the songs that she had sung; and then would come a
choking in his throat, and he would clench his hands, as a runner in
the last moments of a desperate race. He thought of her as he had
seen her last. He had gone away, careless and unthinking--how blind
he had been! The things that he had not said to her, and that he
might have said so easily! The love he had not uttered, the pardons
he had not procured! The yearnings and consecrations that had
remained unspoken all through their lives--ah God, what a tragedy of
impotence and failure their lives had been!

Then before his soul came troops of memories, each one a fiend with
a whip of fire; the words of anger that he had spoken, the acts of
cruelty that he had done! The times when he had made her weep, and
had not comforted her! Oh, what a fool he had been--what a blind and
wanton fool! And now--if he were to find her dead, and never be able
to tell her of his shame and sorrow--he knew that he would carry the
memories with him all his days, they would be like blazing scars
upon his soul.

She was still alive, however; and so he took a deep breath, and went
at his task. There was no question now of what he could bear to do,
but of what he must do; she must be saved, and who could do it but
himself? Who else could take her hands and whisper to her, and fill
her with new courage and hope; who else could bid her to live--to
live; could rouse the fainting spirit, and bid it rise up and set
forth upon the agonizing journey?

So out of the very abyss they came together. But when at last the
fight was won, when the doctors an-nounced that she was out of
danger, Thyrsis was fairly reeling with exhaustion. When he left her
in the afternoon, he would go to his hotel-room and lie down,
utterly prostrated; he would lie awake the whole night through,
wrestling with the demons of horror that he had brought with him
from her bedside.

So he realized that he was on the verge of collapse, and that cost
what it would, he must get away. Corydon's mother was with her, and
when she was strong enough to be moved, she would be taken back to
the farm. He mentioned this to Corydon, and she replied that she
would be satisfied. There would be Mr. Harding also, she said; Mr.
Harding wrote that he would come up to the city, and do what he
could to help her in her dire distress.

Section 9. There came from the higher regions a pass upon a steamer
to Florida; and so Thyrsis sailed away. With a determined effort he
took all his cares, and locked them back in a far chamber of his
mind. He would not think about Corydon, nor about what he would do
for money when he came home; more important yet, he would clear the
book out of his thoughts--he would not permit it to gnaw at him all
day and all night.

And by these resolves he stood grimly. He walked the deck for hours
every day; he watched the foaming green waters, and the gulls
wheeling in the sky, and the sun setting over the sea, and the new
moon showering its fire upon the waves. Gradually the air grew warm,
and ice and snow became as an evil dream. A land of magic it seemed
to which Thyrsis came--the beauty of it enfolded him like a clasp of
love. He saw pine-forests, and swamps with alligators in them, and
live oaks draped with trailing grey moss. The clumps of palmettos
fascinated him--he had seen pictures of such trees in the tropics,
and would hardly have been astonished to see a herd of elephants in
their shadows.

He found a beach, snow-white and hard, upon which he walked for
uncounted miles. He gathered strange shells and crabs, and watched
the turkey-buzzards on the shore, and the slow procession of the
pelicans, sailing past above the tops of the breakers. He saw the
black fins of the grampuses cutting the water, and thought that they
were sharks. He stood for hours at a time up to his waist in the
surf, casting for sea-bass; he got few fish, but joy and excitement
he got in abundance.

Then, back upon the hammocks--to walk upon the hard shell roads, and
see orange and lemon-groves, and gardens filled with roses and
magnolias, and orchards of mulberry and fig-trees. Truly this must
have been the land which the poet had described--

   "Where every prospect pleases,
    And only man is vile."

Thyrsis stayed in a humble boarding-house, but nearby was one of the
famous winter-resorts of the Florida East Coast, and he was free to
go there, and wander about the lobbies and piazzas of the palatial
hotels, and watch the idle rich at their diversions. A strange
society they were--it seemed as if the scum of the civilization of
forty-five states had been blown into this bit of back-water. Here
were society women, jaded with dissipation; stock-brokers and
financiers, fleeing from the strain of the "Street"; here were
parasites of every species, who, having nothing to do at home--or
perhaps not even having any home--had come to this land of warmth to
prolong their orgies. They raced over the roads and beaches in
autos, and over the water in swift motor-boats; they dressed
themselves half a dozen times a day, they fed themselves upon rich
and costly foods, they gambled and gossiped and drank and wantoned
their time away. As he watched them it was all that Thyrsis could do
to keep himself from beginning another manifesto for the "Appeal to
Reason". Oh, if only the toilers of the nation could be brought
here, and shown what became of the wealth they produced!

As if to complete his study of winter-resort manners and morals,
Thyrsis encountered a college acquaintance whose father had become
enormously rich through a mining speculation, and was here with a
party of friends in a private-train. So he was whirled off in one of
half a dozen automobiles, and rode for a hundred miles or so to an
inland lake, and sat down to an _al fresco_ luncheon of such
delicacies as _patГ© de fois gras_ and jellied grouse and champagne.
Afterwards the young people wandered about and amused themselves,
and the elders played "bridge", in the face of all the raptures of
this wonderland of nature.

A strange and sombre figure Thyrsis must have seemed to these
people, with his brooding air and his worn clothing; he rode home in
an auto with half a dozen youths and maidens, and while they flashed
by lakes and rivers that gleamed in the golden moon-light, and by
orchards and gardens from which the mingled scents of millions of
blossoms were wafted to them, these voung people jested together and
laughed and sang.

And Thyrsis lay back and watched them and studied them. Their music
was what is called "rag-time"--they had apparently found nothing
better to do with their lives than to learn hundreds of verses and
melodies, of which the subject-matter was the whims and moods of the
half-tamed African race--their vanities and their barbarous
impulses, and above all their hot and lustful passions. Song after
song they poured forth, the substance of which was summed up in one
line that Thyrsis happened to carry away with him--

   "Ah lubs you, mah honey, yes, Ah do!"

It seemed to him such a curious and striking commentary upon the
stage which leisure-class culture had reached, in the course of its
reversion to savagery.

Section 10. Thyesis came home after three weeks, browned and
refreshed, and ready to take up the struggle again. He came with the
cup of his love and sympathy overflowing; eager to see Corydon, and
to tell her his adventures, and to share with her his store of new
hope.

He found her reclining on the piazza of the farm-house. The April
buds were bursting upon the trees, and the odor of spring was in the
air; also, the flush of health was stealing back into Corydon's
cheeks. How beautiful she looked, and how soft and gentle was her
caress, and what wistfulness and tenderness were in the smile with
which she greeted him!

There was the baby also, tumultuous and excited. Thyrsis took him
upon his knee, and while he fondled him and played with him, he told
Corydon about his trip. But in a short while it became evident to
him that she had something on her mind; and finally she sent the
baby away to play, and began, "There is something I have to tell
you."

"Yes, dear?" he said.

"It is something very, very important."

"Yes?" he repeated.

"I--I don't know just how to begin," said Corydon. "I hope you are
not going to be angry."

"I can't imagine myself being angry just now," he replied; and then,
struck by a sense of familiarity in this introduction, he asked,
with a smile, "You haven't been seeing Harry Stuart, have you?"

Corydon frowned at the words. "Don't speak of that!" she said,
quickly. "I am not joking."

He saw that she was agitated, and so he fell silent.

"I hesitated a long time about telling you," she went on. "But you
must know. I am sure it's right to tell you."

"By all means, dearest," he answered.

"It's a long story," she said. "I must go back to my first
operation." And then she began, and told him how she had found
herself thinking of Mr. Harding, and of the strange vision she had
had; she told of all her fevered excitements, and of her confession
to him. When she finished she was trembling all over, and her face
and throat were flushed.

Thyrsis sat for a while in silence, looking very grave. "I see," he
said.

"You--you are not angry with me?" she asked.

"No, I'm not angry," he replied. "But tell me, what has been going
on since?"

"Well," said Corydon, "Mr. Harding has been coming here to see me.
He saw I needed help, and he couldn't refuse it. It was--it was his
duty to come."

"Yes," said the other. "Go on."

"Well, I think he had an idea that the whole thing was a product of
my sickness; and when I was well again, it would all be over."

"And is it, Corydon?"

She sat staring in front of her; her voice sank to a whisper. "No,"
she said. "It--it isn't."

"And does he know that?" asked Thyrsis.

"He knows everything," she replied. "I don't need to tell him
things."

"But have you talked about it with him?"

"A little," she said. "That is, you see, I had to explain to him--to
apologize for what I had done in the hospital. I wanted him to know
that I wouldn't have said anything to him, if I hadn't been so very
ill."

"I see," said Thyrsis.

"And I want you to understand," added Corydon, quickly-"you must not
blame him. For he's the soul of honor, Thyrsis; and he can't help
how he feels about me-any more than I can help it. You must know
that, dear!"

"Yes, I know that."

"He's been so good and so noble about it. He thinks so much of you,
Thyrsis--he wouldn't do you wrong, not by a single word. He said
that to me---over and over again. He's frightened, you know, that
either of us might do wrong. He's so sensitive-I think he takes
things more seriously than anybody we've ever known."

"I understand," said Thyrsis; and then, after a pause, he inquired,
"But what's to come of it?"

"How do you mean?" she asked.

"What are you going to do?"

"Why, I don't know that there's anything to do, Thyrsis. What would
there be?"

"But are you going on being in love with him forever?"

"I--I don't see how I can tell, Thyrsis. Would it do any harm?"

"It might grow on you," he said, with a slight smile. "It sometimes
does."

"Mr. Harding said we ought never to speak of it again," said she.
"And I guess he's right about that. He said that our lives would
always be richer, because we had discovered each other's souls; that
it would help us to grow into a nobler life."

"I see," said Thyrsis. "But it's a trifle disconcerting at first.
I'll need a little time to get used to it."

"Mr. Harding is very anxious to know you better," remarked Corydon.
"But you see, he's afraid of you, Thyrsis. You are so direct--you
get to the point too quickly for him."

"Um--yes," said he. "I can imagine that."

"And he thinks you distrust him," she went on--"just because he's
orthodox. But he's really not half as backward as you think. His
faith means a great deal to him. I only wish I had such a faith in
my own life."

To which Thyrsis responded, "God knows, my dear, I wish you had."

Section 11. The young clergyman came to call the next afternoon, and
the three sat upon the lawn and talked. They talked about Florida,
and then about Socialism--as was inevitable, after Thyrsis had
described the population of the East Coast hotels. But he felt
constrained and troubled--he did not know just how a man should
conduct himself with his wife's lover; and so in the end he excused
himself and strolled off.

He came back as Mr. Harding was leaving; and it seemed to him that
the other's face wore a look of pain and distress. Also, at supper
he noted that Corydon was ill at ease.

"Something has gone wrong with your program?" he inquired.

To which Corydon answered, "Mr. Harding thinks he ought not to come
any more."

"Not come any more?"

"He says I don't need him now. And he thinks--he thinks it isn't
right. He's afraid to come."

And so a week passed, and the young clergyman was not seen again.
Thyrsis noticed that his wife was silent a great deal; and that when
she did talk, she talked about Mr. Harding. His heart ached to see
her as she was, so pitifully weak and appealing. She was scarcely
able to walk alone yet; and she complained also that her mind had
been weakened by the frightful ordeal she had undergone. It
exhausted her to do any thinking at all; and she seemed to have
forgotten nearly all she knew--there were whole subjects upon which
her mind appeared to be a blank.

So he gave up trying to think about his book, and went about all day
pondering this new problem. It was one of the laws of the marriage
state that he must suffer whenever she suffered. It was never
permitted to him to question the reality of any of her emotions; if
they were real to her, they were real in the only sense that
counted; and he must take them with the entire tragic seriousness
that she took them, he must regard them as inevitable and fatal. For
himself, he could change or suppress emotions--that ability was the
most characteristic fact about him; but Corydon could not do it, and
so he was not permitted to do it. That would be to manifest the
"cold" and "stern" self, which was to Corydon an object of
abhorrence and fear.

So now he went about all day, brooding over this trouble. He would
come to Corydon and see her gazing across the valley with a
melancholy look upon her features; he would see her, with her sweet
face as if suffused with unshed tears. And what was he to do about
it? Was he to rebuke her--however gently--and urge her to suppress
this yearning? To do that would be to plunge her into abysses of
grief. Or was he to come to her, and utter his own love to her, and
draw her to him again? He knew that he could do that--he was
conceited enough to believe that with his eloquence and his power of
soul, he could have wiped Mr. Harding clean out of her thoughts in a
few days. But then, when he had done it, he would have to go back to
the task of revolutionizing the world's critical standards; and what
would become of Corydon after that? What she needed, he told
himself, was a love that was not a will o' the wisp and a fraud, but
a love that was real and unceasing; she needed the love of a man,
and not of an artist!

Here were two young people who were in love with each other; and
according to the specifications of the moral code, they had their
minds made up to sublime renunciation. But then, Thyrsis had a moral
code of his own, and in it renunciation was not the only law of
life.

It was only when he thought of losing Corydon, that he realized to
the full how much he loved her. Then all their consecrations and
their pledges would come back to him; he would hold her as the
greatest human soul that he had ever met. But it was a strange
paradox, that precisely the depth of his love for her made him
willing to think of losing her. He loved her for herself, and not
for anything she gave him; he wanted her to be happy, he wanted her
to grow and achieve, and in order to see her do this he would make
any sacrifice in the world. In how many hours of insight had it
become clear to him that he himself could never make her happy--that
he was not the man to be her husband! Now it seemed as if the time
had come for him to prove that he meant what he had said--that he
was willing to stand by his vision and to act upon it.

So after one day of especial unhappiness, he made up his mind to a
desperate resolve; and at night, when all the household was asleep,
he went over to his lonely study and sat down with a pen in his
hand, and summoned the spirit of Mr. Harding before him.

"I have concluded to write you a letter," he began. "You will find
it a startling and unusual one. I can only beg you to believe that I
have written it after much hesitation, and that it represents most
earnest and prayerful thought upon my part.

"Since my return, I have become aware of the situation which has
developed between yourself and my wife. Her welfare is dearer to me
than anything else in the world; and after thinking it over, I
concluded that her welfare required that I should explain to you the
relationship which exists between us. It seems unlikely that you
could know about it otherwise, for it is a very unusual
relationship.

"I suppose there is no need for me to tell you that Corydon is not
happy. She never has been happy as my wife, and I fear that she
never will be. She is by nature warm-hearted, craving affection and
companionship. I, on the other hand, am by nature impersonal and
self-absorbed--I am compelled by the exigencies of my work to be
abstracted and indifferent to things about me. I perceived this
before our marriage, but not clearly enough to save her; it has been
her misfortune that I have loved her so dearly that I have been
driven to attempt the impossible. I am continuually deceiving myself
into the belief that I am succeeding--and I am continually deceiving
Corydon in the same way. It has been our habit to talk things out
between us frankly; but this is a truth from which we have shrunk
instinctively. I have always seen it as the seed of what must grow
to be a bitter tragedy.

"The possibility that Corydon might come to love some other man was
one that I had not thought of--it was very stupid of me, no doubt.
But now it has happened; and I have worked over the problem with all
the faculties I possess. A man who was worthy of Corydon's love
would be very apt, under the circumstances, to feel that he must
crush his impulses towards her. But when we were married, it was
with the agreement that our marriage should be binding upon us only
so long as it was for the highest spiritual welfare of both; and by
that agreement it is necessary that we should stand at all times. My
purpose in writing to you is to let you know that I have no claim
upon Corydon which prohibits her from continuing her acquaintance
with you; and that if in the course of time it should become clear
that Corydon would be happier as your wife than as mine, I should
regard it as my duty to step aside. Having said this, I feel that I
have done my part. I leave the matter in your hands, with the
fullest confidence in your sincerity and good faith."

Thyrsis wrote this letter, and read it a couple of times. Then he
decided to sleep over it; and the next morning he wakened, and read
it again--with a shock of surprise. He found it a startling letter.
It opened up vistas to his spirit; vistas of loneliness and grief--
and then again, vistas of freedom and triumph. If he were to mail
it, it would be irrevocable; and it would probably mean that he
would lose Corydon. And _could_ he make up his mind to lose her? His
swift thoughts flew to their parting; there were tears in his eyes--
his love came back to him, as it had when he thought she was dying.
But then again, there came a thrill of exultation; the captive lion
within him smelt the air of the jungle, and rattled his chains and
roared.

Throughout breakfast he was absent-minded and ill at ease; he bid
Corydon a farewell which puzzled her by its tenderness, and then
started to walk to Bellevue with the letter. Half way in, he
stopped. No, he could not do it--it was a piece of madness; but then
he started again--he _must_ do it. He found himself pacing up and
down before the post office, where for nearly an hour he struggled
to screw his courage to the sticking-point. Once he started away,
having made up his mind that he would take another day to think the
matter over; but after he had walked half a mile or so, he changed
his mind and strode back, and dropped the letter in the box.

And then a pang smote him. It was done! All the way as he walked
home he had to fight with an impulse to go back, and persuade the
postmaster to return the letter to him!

Section 12. Thyrsis figured that the fatal document would reach Mr.
Harding that afternoon; and the next morning in his anxiety he
walked a mile or two to meet the mail-carrier on his way. Sure
enough, there was a reply from the clergyman. He tore it open and
read it swiftly:

"I received your letter, and I hasten to answer. I cannot tell you
the distress of mind which it has caused me. There has been a most
dreadful misundertanding, and I can only hope that it has not gone
too far to be corrected. I beg you to believe me that there has been
nothing between your wife and myself that could justify the
inference you have drawn. Your wife was in terrible distress of
spirit, and I visited her and tried to comfort her--such is my duty
as a clergyman, as I conceive it. I did nothing but what a clergyman
should properly do, and you have totally misunderstood me, and also
your wife, who is the most innocent and gentle and trusting of
souls. She is utterly devoted to you, and the idea that the help I
have tried to give her should be the occasion of any misunderstanding
between you is dreadful for me to contemplate.

"I must implore you to believe this, and dismiss these cruel
suspicions from your mind. If I were to be the cause of breaking up
your home, and wrecking Corydon's life, it would be more than I
could bear. I have a most profound belief in the sanctity of the
institution of marriage, and not for anything in the world would I
have been led to do, or even to contemplate in my own thoughts,
anything which would trespass upon its obligations. I repeat to you
with all the earnestness of which I am capable that your idea is
without basis, and I beg you to banish it from your mind. You may
rely upon it that I will not see your wife again, under any
circumstances imaginable."

Thyrsis read this, and then stared before him with knitted brows.
"Why, what's the matter with the man?" he said to himself. And then
he read the letter over again, weighing its every phrase. "Did he
think my letter was sarcasm?" he wondered. "Did he think I was
angry?"

He went to his study and got the rough draft of his own letter, and
reread and pondered it. No, he concluded, it was not possible that
Mr. Harding had thought he was angry. "He's trying to dodge!" he
exclaimed. "He can't bring himself to face the thing!"

But then again, he wondered. Could it be that the man was right;
could it be that Corydon had misunderstood him and his attitude? Or
had he perhaps experienced a reaction, and was now trying to deny
his feelings?

For several hours Thyrsis pondered the problem; and then he went and
sat by her, as she was reading on the piazza. "You haven't heard
anything more from Mr. Harding, have you?" he asked.

"Nothing," said Corydon.

"What do you suppose he intends to do?"

"I--I don't know," she said. "I don't think he means to come back."

"But why not, dear?"

"He's afraid to trust himself, Thyrsis."

"You think he really cares for you, then?"

"Yes, dear."

"But, how can you be sure?" he asked.

At which Corydon smiled. "A woman has ways of knowing about such
things," she said.

"I wish you'd tell me about it," said he.

But after a little thought, she shook her head. "Maybe some day, but
not now. It wouldn't be fair to him. It isn't going any further, and
that's enough for you to know."

"He must be unhappy, isn't he?" said Thyrsis, artfully.

"Yes," she answered, "he's unhappy, I'm sure. He takes things very
seriously."

Thyrsis paused a moment. "Did he tell you that he loved you?" he
asked.

"No," said Corydon. "He--he wouldn't have permitted himself to do
that. That would have been wrong."

"But then--what did he do?"

"He looked at me," she said.

"When he went off the other day--did he know how you still felt?"

"Yes, Thyrsis; why do you ask?"

"I thought you might have been deceiving yourself."'

At which she smiled and replied, "I wouldn't have bothered to tell
you in that case."

Section 13. So Thyrsis strolled away, and after duly considering the
matter, he sat himself down to compose another letter to the young
clergyman.

"My dear Mr. Harding:

"I read your note with a great deal of perplexity. It is evident to
me that I have not made the situation clear to you; you probably do
not find it easy to realize the frankness which Corydon and I
maintain in our relationship. I must tell you at the outset that she
has narrated to me what has passed between you, and so I am not
dealing with 'cruel suspicions', but with facts. Can I not persuade
you to do the same?

"It is difficult for me to be sure just what is in your mind. But
for one thing, let me make certain that you are not trying to read
anything between the lines of what I write you. Please understand I
am not angry, or jealous, or suspicious; also, I am not unhappy--at
least not so unhappy but that I can stand it. I have stood a good
deal of unhappiness in my life, and Corydon has also.

"You tell me about your attitude towards my wife. Of course it may
be that as you come to look back upon what has passed between you,
it seems to you that your feeling for her was not deep and
permanent, and that you would prefer not to continue your
acquaintance with her. That would be your right--you have not
pledged yourself in any way. All that I desire is, that in
considering the state of your feelings, you should deal with them,
and not with any duty which you may imagine you owe to _me_. I have
no claim in the matter, and any that I might have, I forego.

"The crux of the whole difficulty I imagine must lie in what you say
about your 'profound belief in the sanctity of the institution of
marriage'. That is, of course, a large question to attempt to
discuss in a letter. I can only say that I once had such a belief,
and that as a result of my studies I have it no longer. I see the
institution of marriage as a product of a certain phase of the
economic development of the race, which phase is rapidly passing, if
it be not already past. And the institution to me seems to share in
the evils of the economic phase; indeed I am accustomed, when
invited to discuss the institution of marriage, to insist upon
discussing what actually exists--which is the institution of
marriage-plus-prostitution.

"Our economic system affords to certain small classes of men--to
capitalists, to merchants, to lawyers, to clergymen--opportunities
of comfort and dignity and knowledge and health and virtue. But to
certain other classes, and far larger classes-to miners, to steel-
workers, to garment-makers--it deals out misery and squalor and
ignorance and disease and vice. And in the case of women it does
exactly the same; to some it gives a sheltered home, with comfort
and beauty and peace; while to others it gives a life of loneliness
and sterility, and to others a life of domestic slavery, and to yet
others only the horrors of the brothel. And when you come to
investigate, you find that the difference is everywhere one of
economic advantage. The merchant, the lawyer, the clergyman, has
education and privilege, he can wait and make his terms; but the
miner, the steel-worker, the sweat-shop-toiler, has to sell his
labor for what will keep him alive that day. And in the same way
with women--some can acquire accomplishments, virtues, charms; and
when it comes to giving their love, they can secure the
life-contract which we call marriage. But the daughter of the slums
has no opportunity to acquire such accomplishments and virtues and
charms, and often she cannot hold out for such a bargain--she sells
her love for the food and shelter that she needs to keep her alive.

"This will seem radical doctrine to you, I suppose; I have noticed
that you take our institutions at their face-value, and do not ask
how much in them may be sham. But it seems to me there is no need to
go into that matter here, for no trespass upon the marriage
obligation is proposed. The conventions undoubtedly give me the
right to be outraged because my wife is in love with another man; I
can denounce him, and humiliate her. But if I am willing to forego
this right, if I do not care to play Othello to her Desdemona, what
then? Who can claim to be injured by my renunciation?

"Of course I know it is said that marriages are made in Heaven, and
that what God hath joined together, no man may put asunder. But it
is difficult for me to imagine that an intelligent man would take
this attitude at the present day. If I were dead, you would surely
recognize that Corydon might remarry; you would recognize it, I
presume, if I were hopelessly insane, or degenerate. What if I were
in the habit of getting drunk and maltreating her--would you claim
that she was condemned to suffer this for life? Or suppose that I
were found to be physically impotent? And can you not recognize the
fact that there might be impotence of an intellectual and spiritual
sort, which could leave a woman quite as unhappy, and make her life
quite as barren and futile?

"Let us suppose, for the sake of the argument, that I have stated
correctly the facts between Corydon and myself; that there exists
between us a fundamental difference in temperament, which makes it
certain that, however much we might respect and admire, and even
love each other, we could never either of us be happy as man and
wife; and suppose that Corydon were to meet some other man, with
whom she could live harmoniously; and that she loved him sincerely,
and he loved her; and that I were to recognize this, and be willing
that she should leave me--do you mean that you would maintain that
such a course was wrong? And if it were, with whom would the blame
be? With her, because she did not condemn herself to a lifetime of
failure? Or with me, because I did not desire her to do
this--because I did not wish to waste my life-force in trying to
content a discontented woman?

"I might add that I have said nothing to Corydon about having
written to you; she has no idea that I have thought of such a thing,
and she would be horrified at the suggestion. I have taken the
responsibility of doing it, realizing that there was no other way in
which you could be made acquainted with the true situation. There is
much more that I could say about all this, but it seems a waste of
time to write it. Can we not meet sometime, and get at each other's
point of view? I am going to be in town the day after to-morrow, and
unless I hear from you to the contrary, I will drop in to see you
some time in the morning."

Section 14. Thyrsis read this letter over two or three times; and
then, resisting the impulse to elaborate his exposition of the
economic bases of the marriage institution, he took it in to town
and mailed it. He waited eagerly for a reply the next day; but no
reply came.

The morning after that, he walked down to town as he had agreed to,
and called at Mr. Harding's home. The door was opened by his
housekeeper, Delia Gordon's aunt. "Is Mr. Harding in?" asked
Thyrsis.

"He's gone up to the city," was the reply.

"To the city," said Thyrsis. "When did he go?"

"He left this morning."

"And when will he be back?"

"I don't know. He left rather suddenly, and he didn't say."

"I see," said Thyrsis. "Tell him I called, please."

And so he went home and mailed another note to Mr. Harding, asking
him to make an appointment for a meeting; after which he waited for
three or four days--but still there came no reply.

"Have you heard anything more from Mr. Harding?" he asked of
Corydon, finally.

"No, dear," she answered. "I don't expect to hear." But he saw that
she was nervous and _distrait_; and he knew by her unwonted interest
in the mail that she was all the time hoping to get some word from
him.

When it came to handling any affair with Corydon, Thyrsis was a poor
diplomatist. He would tell himself that this or that should be kept
from her for the present; but the secrecy always irked him--his
impulse was to talk things out with her, to go hand in hand with her
to face the facts of their life. So now, in this case; one afternoon
he settled her comfortably in a hammock, and sat beside her and took
her hand.

"Corydon," he said, "I've something I want to tell you. I've been
having a correspondence with Mr. Harding."

She started, and stared at him wildly. "What do you mean?" she
gasped.

"I wrote him two letters," said he.

"What about?"

"I wanted to explain about us," he said; and then he told her what
he had put in the first letter, and read Mr. Harding's reply, which
he had in his pocket.

"What do you make of it?" he asked.

"Tell me what your answer was!" cried Corydon, quickly; and so he
began to outline his second letter.

But she did not let him get very far. "You wrote him that way about
marriage!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, dear," said he.

"But, Thyrsis! He'll be perfectly horrified!"

"You think so?"

"Why, Thyrsis! Don't you understand? He's a clergyman!"

"I know; but it's the truth---"

"You don't know anything about people at all!" she cried. "Can't you
realize? He doesn't reason about things like you; you can't appeal
to him in that way!"