e hands of the man and the
woman bled from the wounds and their shoulders were torn grievously
where the load had shifted: those of the woman more than the man, for
she bore more of the weight. I marvelled at the sight.

"Suddenly an intense brightness fell about me and I saw, near and
afar, other figures each bearing similar burdens. The light passed
away, and I drew near the man and questioned him.

"'What rough load is that you carry?' I asked.

"'The burden of conventionality,' answered the man, wearily and with a
note of surprise in his voice.

"'Why do you bear it needlessly?' I remonstrated.

"'We dare not drop it,' said the woman, hopelessly, 'lest that light,
which is the searchlight of public opinion, return, showing us
different from the others.'

"Even as she spoke the illumination again fell upon us, and by its
brightness I saw a drop of blood gather slowly from the wounds on the
woman's hand and fall into the dust at her feet."

A silence fell upon the inmates of the tiny muffled office.

"But the burden isn't useless," said the man, gently. "The condemnation
of society is an hourly reality. From the patronage of others we live.
The sun burns us, but we submit, for in return it gives life."

The woman arose with an abrupt movement, and looked down at him
coldly.

"Are you a man, and use those arguments?" An expression akin to
contempt formed about her mouth. "Are you afraid of a united voice the
individuals of which you despise?"

The first hint of restrained passion was in the answering voice.

"You taunt me in safety, for you know I love you." He looked up at her
unhesitatingly. "Man's law is artificial, that I know; but it's made
for conditions which are artificial, and for such it's right. Were we
as in the beginning, Nature's law, which beside the law of man is no
law, would be right; but we're of the world as it is now. Things are
as they are, and we must conform or pay the price." He hesitated. His
face settled back into a mask. "And that price of non-conformity is
too high," he completed steadily.

The eyes of the woman blazed and her hands tightened convulsively.

"Oh, you're frozen--fossilized, man! I called you man! You're not a
man at all, but a nineteenth century machine! You're run like a motor,
from a power house; by the force of conventional thought, over wires
of red tape. Fie on you! I thought to meet a human being, not a
lifeless thing." She looked at him steadily, her c