you would a matter of banking--without
sentiment, without passion, without an ignorant, liquorish
hallucination----"

The son raised his hand.

"And now it has come in a new way," he said, quietly, "through your
pity and your generosity and your faith. But it has come."

What Jarvis Thornton replied was neither coherent nor weighty. He
flung aside the idea of pity or generosity as absurd. He loved this
woman for herself, because, because he loved her. His father smiled a
sad, kind smile.

"The mother does not seem to have added much to the blood." He threw
this out in order to get the subject back into more reasonable
channels.

"No, she is a weak woman. But what of it? I don't marry the family. We
shall leave them and build a new life, and break the curse." He
smiled, slightly.

"Granting your beliefs that no harm would come to your children, that
it is all chance about these matters," persisted the father, "still
you _cannot_ escape the family. You marry the conditions; they will
remain with you. _They_, if nothing else, will ruin your life."

The younger man rose as if to shake off a physical bandage. For the
first time in his life he felt conscious of a rebellion with the
elemental conditions of existence.

"What if it does mean corruption and misery! I want my joy, my life,
even if they write 'Failure' at the bottom of my page."

"No, no!" his father protested. "You will take the pain all right and
the consequences like a man, but you will never believe that swinish
statement you have just made."

This brought the younger man to his calmer mood.

"I hate them," he said, bitterly, "more than you can; but her I love."

"And to her you will sacrifice all?"

His father looked at him searchingly, longingly.

"Yes, if need be, _all_, but you!"

The old man smiled coolly.

"I shall not count long, and you are independent, anyway. But I don't
care to put the matter on such a footing. We have not lived that way."

"I will do whatever you desire," the son said, "except----"

"I shall ask nothing," his father replied, gently. "If you mean to
marry her you must do so now, when she will need you most. There can
be no compromise, unless your own mind is divided."

As Jarvis Thornton left the house that night he felt that he had dealt
his father a blow.

VII

Some days later when Jarvis Thornton took the familiar turnpike road
he had not recovered from the serious mood his father's talk had
br