hat all her pride
left her--all the high courage of my father left her--"

"And he--the man, the husband?"

"The man?" Max laughed a short, bitter laugh unsuggestive of himself.
"The man did what every man does, my friend, when a woman lies down
beneath his feet--he spurned her away."

"But, my God, a creature like that!"

Again Max laughed. "Yes! That is what you all say of the woman who is
not beneath your own heel! You wonder why I disapprove of love. That is
the reason of my disapproval--the story of my sister Maxine! Maxine who
was as fine and free as a young animal, until love snared her and its
instrument crushed her."

"But the man--the husband?" said Blake again.

"The man? The man followed the common way, dragging her with him--step
by step, step by step--down the sickening road of disillusionment--down
that steep, steep road that is bitter as the Way of the Cross!"

"Boy!"

"I shock you? You have not travelled that road! You have not seen the
morass at the bottom! You have not seen the creature you loved stripped
of every garment that you wove--as has my sister Maxine! You do well to
be shocked. You have not been left with a scar upon your heart; you have
not viewed the last black picture of all--the picture of your beloved as
a dead thing--dead over some affair of passion so sordid that even
horror turns to disgust. You do well to be shocked!"

"Dead?" repeated Blake, caught by the sound of the word. "He died,
then?"

"He killed himself." Max laughed harshly. "Killed himself when all the
wrong was done!"

"And your sister? Your sister? Where did she go--what did she do?"

"What does a woman do when she is thrown up like wreckage after the
storm?"

"She does as her temperament directs. I think your sister would go back
to nature--to the great and simple things."

With a tense swiftness the boy turned from his fixed contemplation of
the sky, his glance flashing upon Blake.

"One must be naked and whole to go back to nature! One fears nature
when one is wreckage from the storm!"

"Then she turned to art?"

"No, my friend! No! Art, like nature, exacts--and she had already given!
She was too frightened--too hurt to meddle with great things. She dried
her tears before they had time to fall; she hardened her heart, and went
back to the world that gives nothing and exacts nothing."

"Poor child!" said Blake. "Poor child!"

"She went back to the world--and the world poured oil on her wounds,