table, to convert
his failures into the building materials of success. Though it did not
even now occur to him that what he called the inevitable had hitherto
been the alternative he happened to prefer, he was yet obscurely
aware that his present difficulty was one not to be conjured by any
affectation of indifference. Some griefs build the soul a spacious
house--but in this misery of Glennard's he could not stand upright. It
pressed against him at every turn. He told himself that this was because
there was no escape from the visible evidences of his act. The "Letters"
confronted him everywhere. People who had never opened a book discussed
them with critical reservations; to have read them had become a social
obligation in circles to which literature never penetrates except in a
personal guise.

Glennard did himself injustice, it was from the unexpected discovery of
his own pettiness that he chiefly suffered. Our self-esteem is apt to
be based on the hypothetical great act we have never had occasion to
perform; and even the most self-scrutinizing modesty credits itself
negatively with a high standard of conduct. Glennard had never thought
himself a hero; but he had been certain that he was incapable of
baseness. We all like our wrong-doings to have a becoming cut, to be
made to order, as it were; and Glennard found himself suddenly thrust
into a garb of dishonor surely meant for a meaner figure.

The immediate result of his first weeks of wretchedness was the resolve
to go to town for the winter. He knew that such a course was just beyond
the limit of prudence; but it was easy to allay the fears of Alexa who,
scrupulously vigilant in the management of the household, preserved
the American wife's usual aloofness from her husband's business cares.
Glennard felt that he could not trust himself to a winter's solitude
with her. He had an unspeakable dread of her learning the truth about
the letters, yet could not be sure of steeling himself against the
suicidal impulse of avowal. His very soul was parched for sympathy; he
thirsted for a voice of pity and comprehension. But would his wife pity?
Would she understand? Again he found himself brought up abruptly against
his incredible ignorance of her nature. The fact that he knew well
enough how she would behave in the ordinary emergencies of life, that
he could count, in such contingencies, on the kind of high courage and
directness he had always divined in her, made him the m