d passed between them. It, was he who had held back, a fact that in
the retrospect caused him some amazement. For, if wifehood were to be
regarded as a profession, Rachel Ogden had every qualification. And Mrs.
Whitely's skilful suggestions had on occasions almost brought him to
believe in the reality of the mirage,--never quite.

Orthodox though he were, there had been times when his humour had borne
him upward toward higher truths, and he had once remarked that promising
to love forever was like promising to become President of the United
States.

One might achieve it, but it was independent of the will. Hodder's
ideals--if he had only known--transcended the rubric. His feeling for
Rachel Ogden had not been lacking in tenderness, and yet he had recoiled
from marriage merely for the sake of getting a wife, albeit one with
easy qualification. He shrank instinctively from the humdrum, and sought
the heights, stormy though these might prove. As yet he had not analyzed
this craving.

This he did know--for he had long ago torn from his demon the draperies
of disguise--that women were his great temptation. Ordination had not
destroyed it, and even during those peaceful years at Bremerton he had
been forced to maintain a watchful guard. He had a power over women,
and they over him, that threatened to lead him constantly into wayside
paths, and often he wondered what those who listened to him from the
pulpit would think if they guessed that at times, he struggled with
suggestion even now. Yet, with his hatred of compromises, he had scorned
marriage.

The yoke of Augustine! The caldron of unholy loves! Even now, as he sat
in the train, his mind took its own flight backward into that remoter
past that was still a part of him: to secret acts of his college days
the thought of which made him shudder; yes, and to riots and revels. In
youth, his had been one of those boiling, contagious spirits that carry
with them, irresistibly, tamer companions. He had been a leader in
intermittent raids into forbidden spheres; a leader also in certain more
decorous pursuits--if athletics may be so accounted; yet he had capable
of long periods of self-control, for a cause. Through it all a spark had
miraculously been kept alive....

Popularity followed him from the small New England college to the
Harvard Law School. He had been soberer there, marked as a pleader, and
at last the day arrived when he was summoned by a great New York lawyer
to