titles in
their closets, let us drop all disguises and see each other as God sees
us. This compact must be broken; let me show you why. Three months ago I
came here to take the chill of an Arctic winter out of blood and brain.
I have done so and am the worse for it. In melting frost I have kindled
fire; a fire that will burn all virtue out of me unless I quench it at
once. I mean to do so, because I will not keep the ten commandments
before men's eyes and break them every hour in my heart."

He paused a moment, as if hotter words rose to his lips than generosity
would let him utter, and when he spoke again there was more reproach
than anger in his voice.

"Ottila, till I knew you I loved no woman but my mother; I wooed no
wife, bought no mistress, desired no friend, but led a life austere as
any monk's, asking only freedom and my work. Could you not let me keep
my independence? Were there not men enough who would find no degradation
in a spiritual slavery like this? Would nothing but my subjection
satisfy your unconquerable appetite for power?"

"Did I seek you, Adam?"

"Yes! Not openly, I grant, your art was too fine for that; you shunned
me that I might seek you to ask why. In interviews that seemed to come
by chance, you tried every wile a woman owns, and they are many. You
wooed me as such as you alone can woo the hearts they know are hardest
to be won. You made your society a refreshment in this climate of the
passions; you hid your real self and feigned that for which I felt most
honor. You entertained my beliefs with largest hospitality; encouraged
my ambitions with a sympathy so genial that I thought it genuine;
professed my scorn for shammery, and seemed an earnest woman, eager to
find the true, to do the right; a fit wife for any man who desired a
helpmate, not a toy. It showed much strength of wit and will to conceive
and execute the design. It proved your knowledge of the virtues you
could counterfeit so well, else I never should have been where I am
now."

"Your commendation is deserved, though so ungently given, Adam."

"There will be no more of it. If I am ungentle, it is because I despise
deceit, and you possess a guile that has given me my first taste of
self-contempt, and the draught is bitter. Hear me out; for this
reminiscence is my justification; you must listen to the one and accept
the other. You seemed all this, but under the honest friendliness you
showed lurked the purpose you have sinc