misery of the world revolved. She was beauty in the flesh. She
led the mind to the desire of holy things. At least, that was where she
had led his mind.

But the cruelty of creation was not content with setting her loose in
the world of created things with the gift of beauty and holiness in her
hand. It had veiled her also with the mysterious magic that was simple
enough and directly compelling enough to rouse the beast of jealousy,
the beast of mastery, in the hearts of men. She did not seem to him an
Aphrodite, bearing in her hand the cup of love. There was something
childlike about her, something as virginal as in Nan. He could believe
she would be endlessly pleased with simple things, that she could be
made to laugh delightedly over the trivialities of daily life. But the
hand of creation having made her, the brain of creation (that inexorable
force bent only on perpetuation) saw she was too good a thing to be
lost, too innocently persuasive to the passion of men. So it had thrown
over her the veil of mystery and pronounced against her the ancient
curse that she should be desired of many and yet too soft of her heart,
too weak in her defenses, even to foresee the pitfalls that awaited her
wandering feet and would sometime break her bones.

This was the worst of all the sleepless hours he had had, and in the
morning he was up and out before Charlotte was ready for him. Jerry had
breakfasted, when Raven came on him in the barn. He expected Tenney to
go chopping, and he wanted the chores done, to get off early. Raven went
in then and told Charlotte he would not have his own breakfast until
Jerry had gone. He wanted to say a word to him as to the gray birches.
But actually he could not down his impatience to know whether Tenney was
coming at all. So he hung about and hindered Jerry with unnecessary talk
for a half hour or so, and while they were standing in the yard
together, looking down toward the river pasture, and Raven was
specifying, with more emphasis than he felt, that a fringe of trees
should be kept along the mowing, Tenney came. Jerry at once said he'd go
in and get his dinner pail and Raven waited for Tenney. This was not the
man of yesterday. He carried his axe and dinner pail. He walked alertly,
as if his mind were on his day's work, and the pale face had quite lost
its livid excitement. It was grave and even sad. Raven, seeing that,
wondered if the fellow could feel remorse, and was conscious of a lift