was dear, without dishonour to that
which now was dearer; and he--let go!

This determined, he strenuously began to prepare himself for the change.
Day by day he watched Nella-Rose with new and far-seeing interest--not
always with love and passion-blinded eyes. He felt that she could, with
his devotion and training, develop into a rarely sweet and fine woman.
He was not always a fool in his madness; at times he was wonderfully
clear-sighted. He meant to return home, when once his health was
restored, and take the Kendalls into his confidence; but the thought of
Lynda gave him a bad moment now and then. He could not easily depose her
from the most sacred memories of his life, but gradually he grew to
believe that her relations to him were--had always been--platonic; and
that she, in the new scheme, would play no small part in his life and
Nella-Rose's.

There would be years of self-denial and labour and then, by and by,
success would be achieved. He would take his finished work, and in this
he included Nella-Rose, back to his old haunts and prove his wisdom and
good fortune. In short, Truedale was love-mad--ready to fling everything
to the ruthless winds of passion. He blindly called things by wrong
names and steered straight for the rocks.

He meant well, as God knew; indeed all the religious elements, hitherto
unsuspected in him, came to the fore now. Conventions were absurd when
applied to present conditions, but, once having accepted the inevitable,
the way was divinely radiant. He meant to pay the price for what he
yearned after. He had no other intention.

Now that he was resigned to letting the past go, he could afford to
revel in the joys of the present with a glad sense of responsibility for
the future.

Presently his course seemed so natural that he wondered he had ever
questioned it. More and more men with a vision--and Truedale devoutly
believed he had the vision--were recognizing the absurdity of old
ideals.

Back to the soil meant more than the physical; it meant back to the
primitive, the simple, the real. The artificial exactions of society
must be spurned if a new and higher morality were to be established.

If Truedale in this state of mind had once seen the actual danger, all
might have been well; but he had swung out of his orbit.

At this juncture Nella-Rose was puzzling her family to the extent of
keeping her father phenomenally sober and driving Marg to the verge of
nerve exhaustion.

T