ervant. Freedom, freedom! If one were
only unconscious of captivity, what would it matter? It is the knowledge
that kills. And James walked again by the neat, iron railing which
enclosed the fields, his head aching with the rigidity and decorum,
wishing vainly for just one piece of barren, unkept land to remind him
that all the world was not a prison.

Already the autumn had come. The rich, mouldering colours were like an
air melancholy with the approach of inevitable death; but in those
passionate tints, in the red and gold of the apples, in the many tones
of the first-fallen leaves, there was still something which forbade one
to forget that in the death and decay of Nature there was always the
beginning of other life. Yet to James the autumn heralded death, with no
consoling afterthought. He had nothing to live for since he knew that
Mrs. Wallace could never love him. His love for her had borne him up and
sustained him; but now it was hateful and despicable. After all, his
life was his own to do what he liked with; the love of others had no
right to claim his self-respect. If he had duties to them, he had duties
to himself also; and more vehemently than ever James felt that such a
union as was before him could only be a degradation. He repeated with
new emotion that marriage without love was prostitution. If death was
the only way in which he could keep clean that body ignorantly despised,
why, he was not afraid of death! He had seen it too often for the
thought to excite alarm. It was but a common, mechanical process,
quickly finished, and not more painful than could be borne. The flesh is
all which is certainly immortal; the dissolution of consciousness is the
signal of new birth. Out of corruption springs fresh life, like the
roses from a Roman tomb; and the body, one with the earth, pursues the
eternal round.

But one day James told himself impatiently that all these thoughts were
mad and foolish; he could only have them because he was still out of
health. Life, after all, was the most precious thing in the world. It
was absurd to throw it away like a broken toy. He rebelled against the
fate which seemed forcing itself upon him. He determined to make the
effort and, come what might, break the hateful bonds. It only required a
little courage, a little strength of mind. If others suffered, he had
suffered too. The sacrifice they demanded was too great.... But when he
returned to Primpton House, the inevitability of