ted his
altar fire and it was quenched. The girl, still holding his hand, said
tenderly:

"I'm so sorry--so sorry, Morty. But I can't! I never--never--never can!"
She hesitated, and repeated, shaking her head sadly, "I never, never can
love you, Morty--never! And it's kind--"

"Yes, yes," he answered as one who realizes a finality. "It's kind
enough--yes, I know you're kind, Laura!" He stopped and gazed at her in
the moonlight--and it was as if a flame on the charred altar of his
heart had sprung up for a second as he spoke: "And I never--never
shall--I never shall love any one else--I never, never shall!"

The girl rose. A moment later the youth followed her. Back into its
sheath under his countenance his soul slipped, and he stood before the
girl smiling a half deprecatory smile. But the girl's face was racked
with sorrow. She had seen tragedy. Her pain wounded him and he winced in
his heart. Wherefore he smiled quite genuinely, and stepped back, and
threw a kiss at the girl as he said: "It's nothing, Laura! Don't mind!
It's nothing at all and we'll forget it! Won't we?"

And turning away, he tripped down the walk, leaving her gazing after him
in the moonlight. At the street he turned back with a gay little
gesture, blew a kiss from his white finger tips and cried, "It's nothing
at all--nothing at all!" And as she went indoors she heard him call,
"It's nothing at all!"

She heard him lift his whistle to the tune of the waltz quadrille, but
she stood with tears in her eyes until the brave tune died in the
distance.

CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH WE SEE HOW LIFE TRANSLATES ITSELF INTO THE MATERIALISM AROUND
IT

Coal and oil and gas and lead and zinc. The black sprite, the brown
sprite, the invisible sprite, the two gray sprites--elemental sprites
they were--destined to be bound servants of man. Yet when they came
rushing out of the earth there at Harvey, man groveled before them, and
sold his immortal soul to these trolls. Naturally enough Daniel Sands
was the high priest at their altar. It was fitting that a devil worship
which prostrated itself before coal and oil and gas and lead and zinc
should make a spider the symbol of its servility. So the spider's web,
all iron and steel in pipes below ground, all steel and iron and copper
in wires and rails above ground, spread out over the town, over the
country near the town, and all the pipes and tubes and rails and wires
led to the dingy little room where Daniel