istful depth, to her glance which awakened in him
an indignant pity, and also blew into flame something not so
creditable--something which smoldered beneath his conscious will. He
perceived in her a spirit of yielding which was difficult to resist. He
understood, much more clearly than at his first meeting with her, how
impossible it was for her to remain in this country (where law was a joke
and women a ribald jest) without being corrupted. She had not escaped her
heritage of passion, and her glances, innocent as they were, roused, even
in him, something lawless.

As he climbed the long hill he grappled deeply with this new and
inexplicable weakness. He had always been a decent fellow as respects
women, and had maintained the same regard for the moral code that he
instinctively bore toward the laws of his adopted country. He could not,
therefore, regard this girl (low as her parentage seemed) in the light of
license; for (he thought) whatever of evil may have been planted deep in
her nature by her ill-assorted father and mother, she is at the moment
sweet and fine, and the man who would awaken her other self should be
accursed.

In this mood, too, he acknowledged the loneliness of his life for the
first time, and rode his silent way up the trail like one in a dream. He
went over his life story in detail, wondering if he had not made a mistake
in leaving England, in taking out his American citizenship. He considered
again, very seriously, the question of going back to live on the estate of
his mother, and once more decided that its revenue was too small. To
return to it meant an acceptance of the restricted life of an English
farmer, and, worst of all, an acquiescence in the social despotism which
he had come to feel and to hate.

The English empire to him was falling apart. Its supremacy was already
threatened by Germany, whereas the future of the States appealed to his
imagination. Here the problems of popular government and of industry were
to be worked out on the grandest scale. The West inspired him. "Some day
each of these great ranges will be a national forest, and each of these
canons will contain its lake, its reservoir." There was something fine in
this vision of man's conquest of nature. "Surely in this development there
is a place for me," he said.

Start at any place he pleased, his mind circled and came back to Lee
Virginia. He reproached himself for not having remained one more day to
help her. She wa