hem--doubt of truth, doubt of generosity and courage, doubt of
disinterestedness, doubt of womanhood. Thorne was getting in a bad
way. Over the smoldering fires of his heart a crust of cynicism began
to form and harden, powdered thick with the ashes of bitterness. What
was the worth of love?--_he_ had found it but a fair-weather friend. A
storm--less than a storm--a cloud, though but as big as a man's hand,
had sent the frail thing skurrying to cover. All ended in self--the
_ego_ dominated the world. Righteousness and unrighteousness arrived
at the same result. The good called it self-sacrifice, and blinded and
glorified themselves; the bad were less hypocritical; _they_ gave it no
sounding name and sought it openly. Self--from first to last, the same
under all names and all disguises. Nay, the wicked were truer than the
good, for the self-seeker inflicted no lasting injury on any save
himself, while the ardor with which the self-immolator flourished the
sacrificial knife imperiled other vitals than his own.

Truly, Thorne was getting into a very bad way. His was not the nature
that emits sweetness when bruised; it cankered and got black spots
through it. And he knew no physician to whom he could go for healing;
no power, greater than his own, to set his disjointed life straight.
Love and faith, alike, stood afar off. The waters of desolation
encompassed his soul, without a sign of olive branch or dove.

Norma, watching him with the eyes of her heart, as well as those of her
understanding, learned something of all this. Thorne did not tell her,
indeed he talked little in the days they spent together, walking or
sitting on the warm dry sand of the coast, and of himself not at all.
His pain was a prisoner, and his breast its Bastile.

But Norma learned it, all the same, and learned, too, that never while
that stormy heart beat in a living breast would it beat for her. She
faced the conclusion squarely, accepted it, and took her resolution.
Norma was a proud woman, and she never flinched; the world should know
nothing of her pain, should never guess that her life held aught of
disappointment.

A letter from Blanche to Berkeley, written within the following month,
contained the result of Norma's resolution.

"You will be surprised," Blanche wrote, "to hear of Norma's sudden
marriage to Hugh Castleton, which took place three days ago, at the
house of the American Minister here in Paris. We were amazed--at