he whole of it. All that a man has he will give for his life. Is it
selfishness?" Stephen locked his hands tight together, and looked at Mercy
almost angrily. She was writhing under his words. She had always an
unspeakable dread of being unjust to him. Love made her infinitely tender,
and pity made her yearn over him. But neither her own love and pity nor
his passionate words could wholly blind her now; and there was a sadness
in the tones in which she replied,--

"No, Stephen, I did not mean to call you selfish; but I can't understand
why you are not as brave and patient about all hard things as you are
about the one hardest thing of all."

"Mercy, would you marry me now, if I asked you?" said Stephen. He did not
realize the equivocal form of his question. An indignant look swept over
Mercy's face for a moment, but only for a moment. She knew Stephen's love
too well.

"No, Stephen," she said, "I would not. If you had asked me at first, I
should have done it. I thought then that it would be best," she said, with
hot blushes mounting high on her cheeks; "but I have seen since that it
would not."

Stephen sighed. "I am glad you see that," he said. Then in a lower tone,
"You know you are free, Mercy,--utterly free. I would never be so base as
to hold you by a word."

Mercy smiled half-bitterly, as she replied,--

"Words never hold people, and you know very well it is only an empty form
of words to say that I am free. I do not want to be free, darling," she
added, in a burst of tenderness toward him. "You could not set me free, if
you tried."

When Mercy told Parson Dorrance her intention of going away, his face
changed as if some fierce spasm wrung him; but it was over in a second,
and he said,--

"You are quite right, my child,--quite right. It will be a great deal
better for you in every way. This is no place for you now. You must have
at least a year or two of travel and entire change."

In her heart, Mercy contrasted the replies of her two lovers. She could
not banish the feeling that one was the voice of a truer love than the
other. She fought against the feeling as against a treason; but the truth
was strongest. In her heart, she knew that the man she did not love was
manlier than the man she loved.

Chapter XI

For the first few months after Mercy went away, Stephen seemed to himself
to be like an automaton, which had been wound up to go through certain
movements for a certain length of time,