al
and physical conditions. The "soul-frost" which chills the very marrow
of her bones is so vividly conveyed that you shiver sympathetically. The
self-righteous and brutally censorious attitude of the community lowers
the temperature and makes the atmosphere deadly. And the fact that it
is Ragni's unsuspicious innocence, and even her love of her husband,
which expose her to this condemnation is made plain with much delicate
art. Her residence of five years in the United States after her divorce,
and before her second marriage, had, no doubt, accustomed her to a
greater freedom of intercourse between man and woman, and thereby
disposed her to trip rather lightly over the stumbling-blocks of
prudence.

The history of Kallem's sister, Josephine, and her husband, the Reverend
Ole Tuft, which is closely interwoven with the above, furnishes us with
two more characters deeply felt and strongly realized. It is they who
are the chief instruments of Ragni's martyrdom. As the upholders of
social purity, and, as it were, professional guardians of morals, it
would seem that Tuft and his wife had scarcely any choice but to condemn
marriage with a _divorcee_. When, however, after Ragni's death, they
discover whom they have slain--how much purer, nobler, and of more
delicate nature she was than either of them--they are dissolved in shame
and remorse. A tremendous crisis in their spiritual lives is produced by
the mortal peril of their only child, whom Kallem saves by a skilful
operation. Out of the ancient religion of dogmas which judges and damns,
Tuft is by these experiences led into a new religion of love, which
values life above faith, and charity above all. The reconciliation of
brother and sister in the last chapter is profoundly moving. The moral
is emphasized in the phrase with which the story closes: "Wherever good
men walk, there are the ways of God."

The charm of this novel is, to me, that it is strong, virile, instinct
with vital thought. There are blemishes in it, too, which no one will be
likely to overlook. Several chapters read like the reports of a clinic
in a medical journal, so extremely minute and circumstantial are the
accounts of Kallem's operations and hypnotic experiments. An excursion
into botany, _a propos_ of Ragni's walk in the woods, is likewise
overloaded with details and teems with scientific terms. But the
greatest blemish is the outbreak in Kallem (who has the author's fullest
sympathy) of a certain