he result is
a certain purification of his own nature. That Dartmouth had
found himself capable of such a love had been a source of keenest
gratification to him. He had been lifted to a spiritual level which he
had never touched before, and there he had determined to remain.

And to have this pure and exquisite love smirched with the memory of
sin and vulgar crime! To take into his arms as his wife the woman on
whose soul was written the record of temptation and of sin! It was
like marrying one's mistress: as a matter of fact, what else was it?
But Weir Penrhyn! To connect sin with her was monstrous. And yet, the
vital spark called life--or soul, or intelligence, or personal force;
whatever name science or ignorance might give it--was unchanged in
its elements, as his own chapter of memories had taught him. Every
instinct in Sioned's nature was unaltered. If these instincts were
undeveloped in her present existence, it was because of Weir's
sheltered life, and because she had met him this time before it was
too late.

He sprang to his feet, almost overturning the chair. "I can think no
more to-night," he exclaimed. "My head feels as if it would burst."

He went into his bedroom and poured out a dose of laudanum. When he
was in bed he drank it, and he did not awake until late the next day.

XI.

In the life of every man there comes a time when he is brought face
to face with the great problem of morality. The murderer undoubtedly
comprehends the problem in all its significance when he is about to
mount the scaffold, the faithless wife when she is dragged through the
divorce court, and her family and friends are humbled to the dust.

Dartmouth worked it out the next night as he sat by his library fire.
He had given the afternoon to his business affairs, but when night
threw him back into the sole companionship of his thoughts, he
doggedly faced the question which he had avoided all day.

What was sin? Could anyone tell, with the uneven standard set up by
morality and religion? The world smiled upon a loveless marriage. What
more degrading? It frowned upon a love perfect in all but the sanction
of the Church, if the two had the courage to proclaim their love. It
discreetly looked another way when the harlot of "Society" tripped
by with her husband on one hand and her lover on the other. A man
enriched himself at the expense of others by what he was pleased to
call his business sharpness, and died revered as