ery outlook forward; to others, not till they are well along
the path of yellow leaves. For it is not man who makes this moment.
Circumstance, pure and simple, leads to his sublime communion, and
circumstance is of the earth. A man may sin, and keep on sinning with
never a qualm, till reality sends in the bill. Then it is as if he had
stepped upon a corpse at night, and he is shocked beyond his strength to
move. Whether this be the specter of public shame, of physical decay, or
the ruin of a fellow, and however far along the highway of his life it
may appear, there still must come that hour to each who has unworthily
yielded, when he stands appalled; that hour when he raises eyes and arms
in mute despair up, up--somewhere. This is God's hour; then is where His
mercy conquers. But grim realities are not required to touch all hearts.
It does not need the jail, it does not need the fiery lash of a ruined
woman's pleading, it does not need the death-bed of one beloved; because
the Kingdom of Earth is such that just a pair of eyes, a damask cheek,
the murmuring of a name at twilight, may grow beneath some magic dew
into a power that holds one hand upon the Throne and with the other
meets mankind. Love!--another son of God; sometimes welcomed, sometimes
cherished, sometimes flattered, sometimes crucified!

Brent clenched his teeth. In years his own outlook was across the
sprouting fields of life, but to his hope of winning Jane he could gaze
only back along the path of yellow leaves. He realized how truly this
was of his own doing, and unsparingly laid the blame at its rightful
place. With whatever sincerity he might curse his follies, with whatever
fierce pleasure he would strangle them for her sake, their abandonment
now could not weld that link which would have united the chains of their
destinies. Too late! The utter hopelessness of this made him groan
aloud, as he had the first night they met in the circle of cedars; then,
from a false and poisonous pride; now, from humility and a man's honest
grief.

The sound of wheels brought him back to the time and place. He looked
up, shaking off the spell; but his hands were tightly shut, as if he
might be gripping the last tatters of abandoned hope. With a quick
gesture he made as though to wrap them close about him, and then smiled
at the realism into which his earnestness was leading.

Jane was standing on the porch, waiting; and a darky had brought around
Brent's own horse a