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 ?"
THE BREAK FOR FREEDOM
"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."
§ 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 Cory-don 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" sell',
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 he 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—rthat 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.