morning mist, a momentary
exhalation. And yet, how filled with joy or woe is this moment of
parting or commingling! Pepeeta, I have decided that this day must
terminate my suspense. I cannot endure it any longer. I must know before
night whether our lives are to be united or divided. You have told me
that you love me, and yet you will not give yourself to me. What am I to
think of this?"

"My friend," she cried with an infinite pain in her voice, "how can you
force me to such a decision when you know all the difficulties of my
life? How can you thus forget that I have a husband?"

"I do not forget it," he answered bitterly, "I cannot forget it. It is
an eternal demonstration of the madness of faith in any kind of
Providence. It makes me hate an order which unites a lion to a lamb, and
marries a dove to a hawk! You say that you loathe this man! Then leave
him and come with me! The world lies before us. We are as free as those
clouds!"

"We are not free, and neither are they," she answered. "Something binds
them to their pathway, as it binds me to mine. I cannot leave it. I must
tread it even though I have to tread it alone."

"You can leave it if you will; but if you will not, I must know the
reason why."

"Oh! why will you not see? I have tried so hard to show you! I have told
you that there is a voice which speaks within my soul, that to it I must
listen and that the inward light of which you told me shines upon the
path and I must follow it."

"I could curse that inward light! Must I be always confronted by the
ravings of my youth? All my life long must the words of my credulous
childhood hang about my neck like a millstone? There is no inward light.
You are living a delusion. You are restrained by the conventionalities
of life and are the slave of the customs of society. Because the
miserable herd of mankind is willing to submit to that galling yoke of
marriage, does it follow that you must? By what right can society demand
that men and women who abhor each other should be doomed to pass their
lives in hopeless agony? Against such laws I protest! I defy those
customs. The path of life is short. We go this way but once! Who is to
refuse us all the joy that we can find? There will be sorrow enough, any
way!"

"Oh! my friend, do not talk so! Do not break my heart! Have pity on me.
I know that it is hard for you; but it is I who have to suffer most. It
is I who must continually exert this terrible resistance whi