shown him--only too convincingly--how that marriage had occurred. He
had cried out to Mrs. Caldwell that Sheila must have loved Ted, but he
had realized, then, that she had not. And he realized it now. It had
been love's hour with her, but it had not been love. It had not been
love because he himself, who could have given her such a love as she
needed, who could have compelled such a love from her, had failed her.
Back and forth he paced in his little room; a creature caged, not by
mere walls, but by an irreparable mistake; a creature agonized and
helpless. For it was too late for this vision of utter truth now. His
life was spoiled--and hers!

Yes, he had spoiled her life! For a little while, he forgot his own
disaster in contemplating hers. He had said that he was not the right
man for her; but with all his soul and all his brain and all his blood,
he knew that he was the right man for her. Throughout her whole life
she had turned to him with that simple trust which is bred of love, or
at least of potential love, alone. She had said to him once--long
ago--with an innocent and tender wonder, "There is nothing I cannot
tell you, Peter--nothing!" And that had been true--until Ted had lured
her into bondage. While she had been free, there had not been a door
in her heart or her spirit that would not have opened at his touch.
She had been his--his for the taking! And he had not taken her.

He had left her to Ted; to Ted for whom so many doors of her nature
must be closed forever. He had left her to that most terrible
loneliness of all--loneliness in a shared life. The thoughts that she
could not speak to Ted--how they must beat about in the prison of her
mind; how they must cry for release, for answer! He seemed to feel
them against his own temples, those unuttered thoughts that were
Sheila's very self; he seemed to feel their ache, their hunger.
Nothing would be born of those thoughts now; that gift of expression
which had been a part of Sheila's soul would go barren to the grave.
This was one of the wrongs he had done her--but it was not the worst.

For the worst that had befallen her through him, he told himself, was
not that her gift had missed expression, but that she herself had
missed the blinding glory of true love.

She was immature, she was undeveloped, because he had not made her his.
And he wanted to make her his. Oh, my God, he wanted to make her his!
His life was charred to ashes, but his