lamely.

"Do you think love is everything to a woman?" Mary-Clare demanded
ferociously.

"It is the biggest thing!" Northrup was up in arms to defend his code
and his work.

"You think it could wipe out honour, all the things that meant honour
to her?"

"Love conquers everything for a woman."

"Does it for a man?"

Northrup tried to fling out the affirmative, but he hedged.

"Largely, yes."

"I do not think that. There are some things bigger to him. Maybe not
bigger, but things that he would choose instead of love, if he had to.
It is what you _do_ to love that matters. If you come and take it when
you haven't a right to it; when you'd be stealing it; letting other
sacred things go for it--then you would be killing love. But if you
honour it, even if it is lonely and often sad, it lives and lives
and----"

The universe, at that momentous instant, seemed to rock and tremble.
Everything was swept aside as by a Force that but bided its hour and
had taken absolute control.

Northrup was never able to connect the two edges of conscious thought
that were riven apart by the blinding stroke that left him and
Mary-Clare in that space where their souls met. But, thank God, the
Force was not evil; it was but revealing.

Northrup drew Mary-Clare to her feet and held her little work-worn
hands close.

"You are crying--suffering," he whispered.

"Yes."

"And----"

"Oh! please wait"--the deep sobs shook the girl--"you must wait. I'll
try to--to make you see. I was awake that night at the inn--that is
why I--trust you now! Why I want you to--to understand."

She seemed pleading with him--it made him wince; she was calling forth
his best to help her weakest.

"Your book"--Mary-Clare gripped that again--"your book is a beautiful,
live thing--we must keep it so! Your man has grown and grown through
every page until he quite naturally believed he was able to--to do
more than any man can ever do! Why, this is your chance to be
different, stronger." The quick, panting words ran into each other and
then Mary-Clare controlled them while, unheeded, the tears rolled down
her cheeks. "You must let your woman _act_ for herself! She, too, must
learn and know. She made a horrible mistake from _not_ knowing and
seeing the first man; no love can help her by taking the solution from
her. She must be free--free and begin again. If it is right----"

"Yes, Mary-Clare. If it is right, what then?"

Everything seemed to wait upon