o be personal, the strain on feminine faith
is still greater--in the majority of cases too great to be borne.

Thus Christopher and Elisabeth came to the parting of the ways. She said
to herself, "He doesn't love me because he won't do what I want,
regardless of his own ideas of duty." And he said to himself, "If I fail
to do what I consider is my duty, I am unworthy--or, rather, more
unworthy than I am in any case--to love her." Thus they moved along
parallel lines; and parallel lines never meet--except in infinity.

CHAPTER XII

"THE DAUGHTERS OF PHILIP"

In the market-place alone
Stood the statue carved in stone,
Watching children round her feet
Playing marbles in the street:
When she tried to join their play
They in terror fled away.

Christopher went to Australia in search of George Farringdon's son, and
Elisabeth stayed in England and cherished bitter thoughts in her heart
concerning him. That imagination of hers--which was always prone to lead
her astray--bore most terribly false witness against Christopher just
then. It portrayed him as a hard, self-righteous man, ready to sacrifice
the rest of mankind to the Moloch of what he considered to be his own
particular duty and spiritual welfare, and utterly indifferent as to how
severe was the suffering entailed on the victims of this sacrifice. And,
as Christopher was not at hand to refute the charges of Elisabeth's
libellous fancy by his own tender and unselfish personality, the accuser
took advantage of his absence to blacken him more and more.

It was all in a piece with the rest of his character, she said to
herself; he had always been cold and hard and self-contained. When his
house had been left unto him desolate by the stroke which changed his
uncle from a wise and kindly companion into a helpless and peevish
child, she had longed to help and comfort him with her sympathy; and he
had thrown it back in her face. He was too proud and too superior to
care for human affection, she supposed; and now he felt no hesitation in
first forsaking her, and then reducing her to poverty, if only by so
doing he could set himself still more firmly on the pedestal of his own
virtue. So did Elisabeth's imagination traduce Christopher; and
Elisabeth listened and believed.

At first she was haunted by memories of how good he had been to her when
her cousin Maria died, and many a time before; and she used to dream
about him at night with so