"And you are making the one tragic mistake no repentance can undo. You
are choosing to commit the one unpardonable sin--the sin against the
Spirit."

"And what, pray, is that?"

"The deliberate choice of evil, knowing it to be evil. Your heart is
mine--mine, I tell you! Do you deny it?"

Again he seized her hand, gripped it fiercely, and looked into her eyes
with tender, searching gaze.

Nan looked away.

"Oh, Nan, dear, believe me," he pleaded. "You can't deny this voice
within the soul and live! Happiness is inside, not outside, dear. You
say you want to own a castle on a mountain side. You can't do it by
holding a deed and paying taxes on it. I can own it without a deed. I
haven't a million, but I own this great city. This mighty harbour is
mine. That's why I built our little home nest here on the hill
overlooking it. It's all mine--these miles of shining ocean sands, the
sea, and these landlocked waters. The great city that stretches
northward, its miles of gleaming lights that will come out to-night and
dim the stars, the hum and thrill of its life, the laughter and the
tears, the joys and the fears--are all mine because I see and hear and
feel and understand! Nor can the tax gatherer put his hand on my
wealth. It's beyond his touch."

The girl's spirit was caught at last in the grip of his passionate
appeal, and her rebellion ceased for the moment as she watched and
listened with increasing sympathy.

"Beauty is always a thing of the soul, Nan," he rushed on. "The things
we possess are signs of the spirit or we don't possess them--they
possess us. The dress you wear expresses something within you when it
fits your beautiful body so perfectly. The mere possession of houses
and lands and things has no meaning unless they reveal _us_. If they
merely express the labour of an ancestor, the mind of an architect or
the genius of a manager, we are only intruders on the scene, not the
creator and therefore the possessor of the beauty we aim at. A home, a
dress, are symbols, or nothing but goods and chattels. I have seen you
wear dresses made by your own hand that revealed a whole conception of
life and hats that were poems. The dress you wear to-day is perfect
because it expresses you. The clothes of a millionaire's wife have no
meaning except conformity to fashion and the expenditure of vast sums
of money. The poetic taste, the subtle mystery of personality which you
put into your dress have always been a joy to