, was merely a
girl's hunger for motion; yet that had divided her in his mind from
her kind.

"There is a world beyond," she murmured, in wondering repetition of
his words. The branches of the nut-trees swayed in the odorous wind as
if whispering, "Yes, yes, we know of it. That world beyond ... over
the hills of flesh, and the tedious wastes of tired bodies, there _is_
a world of peace beyond!"

Her eyes came to his face wistfully. He held the keys of that
beyond.... Something had snapped in his well-ordered mechanism, and he
was going, going, drifting will-lessly into feeling and longing. And
the next moment he held her, looking into a face that burned with
love. There were no words. Life had been too strong for his little
plans; it had mocked him and driven him passionward, like a bit of
straw caught in a gale. The hours swam on unheeded, while they rested
there face to face. Then came the going home across the afternoon
woods; she silent and content, he trying to account for himself. When
he had speculated about such matters, he had seen himself discussing,
quite properly, the serious affairs of life with some tall girl of
distinguished carriage, some one of the many young women whose
acquaintance had made up his Boston parties. He had expected that
their conversation would grow more serious as this intimacy deepened,
and that at last, having found themselves of one accord on the sober
ideals of life, he should broach to her this final proposition
involving both their lives. He had half imagined such a situation with
several fine young women; the scene had always been played out in a
drawing-room filled with bric-a-brac and heavy hangings, he in his
long black afternoon coat. There had been a touch of solemnity in it,
a weighty sense of responsibility that would have made their first
kiss a little sepulchral.

Now, this! Her hand touched his; his mind left these bizarre images,
and suddenly it seemed that life was one wilderness of woods in the
late afternoon sun, down which he was fated to wander in a lethargic
dream. One dominant feeling of tenderness; one indifference to the
baying of reason--merely love, and the soft, warm earth, and the
greenness of living things, and the woman whose dress brushed his arm.
Ah! that was sweet and precious at any price.

VIII

He had put something in motion on that languid July day, and suddenly
he was whirled along in a stream of consequences. There was an
intervi