Another night of misery, and no answer to that question yet.

He had told her that he would not see Nell again without first letting
her know. So, when morning came, he simply wrote the words: "Don't come
today!"--showed them to Sylvia, and sent them by a servant to Dromore's.

Hard to describe the bitterness with which he entered his studio that
morning. In all this chaos, what of his work? Could he ever have peace
of mind for it again? Those people last night had talked of 'inspiration
of passion, of experience.' In pleading with her he had used the words
himself. She--poor soul!--had but repeated them, trying to endure them,
to believe them true. And were they true? Again no answer, or certainly
none that he could give. To have had the waters broken up; to be plunged
into emotion; to feel desperately, instead of stagnating--some day he
might be grateful--who knew? Some day there might be fair country again
beyond this desert, where he could work even better than before. But
just now, as well expect creative work from a condemned man. It seemed
to him that he was equally destroyed whether he gave Nell up, and with
her, once for all, that roving, seeking instinct, which ought, forsooth,
to have been satisfied, and was not; or whether he took Nell, knowing
that in doing so he was torturing a woman dear to him! That was as far
as he could see to-day. What he would come to see in time God only knew!
But: 'Freedom of the Spirit!' That was a phrase of bitter irony indeed!
And, there, with his work all round him, like a man tied hand and foot,
he was swept by such a feeling of exasperated rage as he had never known.
Women! These women! Only let him be free of both, of all women, and the
passions and pities they aroused, so that his brain and his hands might
live and work again! They should not strangle, they should not destroy
him!

Unfortunately, even in his rage, he knew that flight from them both could
never help him. One way or the other the thing would have to be fought
through. If it had been a straight fight even; a clear issue between
passion and pity! But both he loved, and both he pitied. There was
nothing straight and clear about it anywhere; it was all too deeply
rooted in full human nature. And the appalling sense of rushing
ceaselessly from barrier to barrier began really to affect his brain.

True, he had now and then a lucid interval of a few minutes, when the
ingenious nature of