thought swept through his soul edgeways. Did he love her?
Would he love her always? And he was conscious of the contrast his
speech presented, to the tumult that raged and shrieked within him.
Yet he couldn't speak the word, and he cursed his little cowardice.

The ball came and went--a little year with its four seasons; and when
in the hall he stood by her, helping her with her cloak (silk and
gray fur, folding the delicate line of the neck), and became aware
that even those last moments did not hold the word his soul was
whispering, he cursed his cowardice, and, weary of himself, he turned
down the dark street, feeling that he had lost his life.

"Now all is ended," he thought, "I'm like a convict who attempted
escape and has been brought back and yoked again in the sweaty and
manacled gang; and I must continue in and bear with this life of
gross sensuality and dirty journalism, 'which I have borne and yet
must bear'--a wearisome repetition of what has been done and re-done
a thousand times, 'till death-like sleep shall steal on me,' and I
may hear some horrible lodging-house keeper 'breathe o'er my dying
brain a last monotony.' And in various degradations my intellect will
suffer, will decay; but with her refining and elevating influence, I
might be a great writer. It is certain that the kernel of Art is
aspiration for higher things; at all events, I should lead a cleanly
life. If I were married to her I should not write this book. It
certainly is a disgraceful book; and yet it amuses me."

His thoughts paused, then an idea came, and with his pen he pursued
it and the quickly rising flight which followed for a couple of
hours.

"Why should I not write and ask her to marry me?" He smiled at the
thought, but the thought was stronger than he, and he went to bed
thinking of her, and he rose thinking of her; and the desire to write
and tell her that he loved her and wanted her for wife persisted; he
shook it off a dozen times, but it grew more and more poignant, until
it settled on his heart, a lancinating pain which neither work nor
pleasure could remove. Daily he grew feebler, losing at each effort
some power of resistance. One day he took up the pen to write the
irrevocable. But the reality of the ink and paper frightened him.
"Will you be my wife?" seemed to him silly. Even in this crisis
self-esteem lay uppermost in his mind; and he wrote many letters
before he felt certain he had guarded himself against ridicule