please you, to the assurance that
this is the treading of the elect, instinct will justify itself in many
to whom the denial of a supreme need has been the closing of the upward
path. Midway in his life, when slow development waited but occasion to
establish the possibilities of a passionate character, Dagworthy
underwent the trial destined to determine the future course of his life.
One hesitates to impute it to him as a fault that he was not of the
elect. A mere uneducated Englishman, hitherto balancing always between
the calls from above and from below, with one miserable delusion and its
consequent bitterness ever active in his memory, he could make no
distinction between the objects which with vehemence he desired and the
spiritual advantage which he felt the attainment would bring to him; and
for the simple reason that in his case no such distinction existed. Even
as the childhood of civilisation knows virtue only in the form of a
concrete deity, so to Dagworthy the higher life of which he was capable
took shape as a mortal woman, and to possess her was to fulfil his
being. With the certainty that she was beyond his reach came failure of
the vital forces which promised so much. A pity for it flatters us poor
mortals to discern instances of the soul's independence of the body. I
would it had been otherwise with Dagworthy; I have but to relate the
facts. It was no dark angel that had whispered to him through the hours
of his waiting for Emily's surrender. High aims, pure ambitions, were
stronger in him than they ever had been; stronger than they ever would
be again. It was when Emily left him with those proud words of defiance
that the veritable demon took stand at his ear. The leaping, fruitful
sap of his being turned itself to gall. He sat with a brow of blackness;
cruel projects worked in his brain.

Not only had he lost her, but his loss was another's gain. The pricking
of jealousy, for a while suspended, again became maddening. He had heard
her say that she would die rather than be his wife; judge, then, what
must be her love of the man she bud chosen. His desire now was to do her
injury, and his fiercest torment was the thought that he dared not
fulfil the menace with which he had hoped to overwhelm her. If he
prosecuted Hood, all the circumstances of the case would inevitably come
out; Emily had friends in Dunfield, and if her father's guilt were once
disclosed, there would be no reason for her concealment of