otional language of his lips, and
stirred her for the moment to genuine feeling. For a few months they
seemed tolerably mated, then the inevitable divergence began to show
itself. Jerome withdrew into his reveries, became taciturn, absorbed
himself at length in the study of Dante; Mrs. Otway, resenting this
desertion, grew critical, condemnatory, and, as if to atone for her
union with a man who stood outside all the creeds, developed her mild
orthodoxy into a peculiarly virulent form of Anglican puritanism. The
only thing that kept them together was their common inclination for a
retired existence, and their love of the northern moorland.

Looking back upon his marriages, the old man wondered sadly. Why had he
not--he who worshipped the idea of womanhood--sought patiently for his
perfect wife? Somewhere in the world he would have found her, could he
but have subdued himself to the high seriousness of the quest. In a
youthful poem, he had sung of Love as "the crown of life," believing it
fervently; he believed it now with a fervour more intense, because more
spiritual. That crown he had missed, even as did the multitude of
mankind. Only to the elect is it granted--the few chosen, where all are
called. To some it falls as if by the pure grace of Heaven, meeting
them as they walk in the common way. Some, the fewest, attain it by
merit of patient hope, climbing resolute until, on the heights of noble
life, a face shines before them, the face of one who murmurs "_Guardami
ben_!"

He thought much, too, about his offspring. The two children of his
first marriage he had educated on the approved English model, making
them "gentlemen." Partly because he knew not well how else to train
them, for Jerome was far too weak on the practical side to have shaped
a working system of his own--a system he durst rely upon; and partly,
too, because they seemed to him to inherit many characteristics from
their mother, and so to be naturally fitted for some conventional
upper-class career. The result was grievous failure. In the case of
Piers, he decided to disregard the boy's seeming qualifications, and,
after having him schooled abroad for the sake of modern languages, to
put him early into commerce. If Piers were marked out for better
things, this discipline could do him no harm. And to all appearances,
the course had been a wise one. Piers had as yet given no cause for
complaint. In wearying of trade, in aiming at something more liberal,