 possessed him. He would have what he wanted of life. What need was there to renounce? And then, like a minor chord, soft and plaintive, he heard Hazel's voice in bewildered accents murmur:

'What for do you, my soul?' and, 'I'm much obleeged, I'm sure.'

What stood between him and his desire was Hazel's helplessness, her personality, like a delicate glass that he would break if he stirred. Creed and convention pushed him on. For Church and State are for material righteousness, the letter of the law. Spiritual flowerings, high motives clad in apparent lawlessness—these are hardly in their province since they are for those who still need crude rules. To the scribes, and still more to them that sold doves, Christ was a brawler.

Rather than break that glass he would not stir. What were the race and public opinion to him compared with her spirit? His tenets must make an exception for her. These things were negligible. All that mattered was himself and Hazel; his passion, Hazel's freedom; his longing for husbandhood and fatherhood, her elvish incapacity for wifehood and motherhood. He suddenly detested himself for the rosy pictures he had seen. He was utterly abased at the knowledge that he had really meant at one moment to enforce his rights, to lift the latch. The selfish use of strength always seemed to him a most despicable thing. From all points he surveyed his crisis with shame. He had made his decision; but he knew how easy it would have been to make the opposite one. How easy and how sweet! He stayed where he was for a long time, too tired to get up, weary with a conflict that was hardly yet begun. Then he heard his mother calling, and got up, closing the door as one surrenders a dream. He still held in one hand the bunch of rosy tulips he had bought for Hazel at the show. They hung their heads.

'Oh, my dear boy,' said Mrs. Marston, 'I've called and better called, and no answer! Where were you?'

Edward might have said with truth, 'In hell.' He only said: 'In a valley of this restless mind.'

'What valley, dear? Oh, no valley, only a poem?' How very peculiar! Dear, dear! she thought; I hope all this isn't turning his brain; it seemed so like nonsense what he said. 'You look so pale, my dear
