d he would be under the island.

And in any case he must suffer. As far as he was concerned it was a
question which was the less of the evils. If he returned from a long
disgrace in Charlestown to face her again, not even the great work he
had accomplished would make him hate himself the less, atone for the
final ruin of his self-respect. If he conquered he would be a maimed
and blighted being for the rest of his days.

And then the grinning images disappeared and she had another vision.
She saw Warner ten years hence, a sleek and prosperous planter, taking
an occasional recreation in the great capital with his handsome wife,
and smirking at the reminders of its prostration before his glorious
youth; congratulating himself and her at his escape; that his soul,
not his body, was rotting under Nevis.

Anne turned her face to the wall and pressed her hands to her eyes.
The noise of the storm she no longer heard, but the picture filled
her with terror. What right had either he or she to consider so
insignificant and transient a thing as human happiness, the welfare
of the body that began its decay with its birth? Genius of mental
creation was the most mysterious, the most God-like of all gifts, as
well as the rarest; the herd of small composers counted no more than
the idle gossip that filled up awkward pauses. Great gifts were not
without purpose bestowed; and as they should be exercised for the good
of the inarticulate millions so should they be carefully tended until
Time alone extinguished them. In Warner this great gift of poetic
imagination combined with a lyric melody never excelled, was to his
nature what religion was to common mortals. It had kept the white
flame of his inner life burning undimned when men whose lives were
creditable had long since forgotten that souls, except as mere
religious furniture, were to be taken into account.

Warner had been singled out to enrich the world of letters. That was
his mission on earth; all, no doubt, that he had been born for.
Youthful training exercised hardly more influence upon the development
of the race than literature. If it had no mission it would never have
tracked through the infinite variety of interests in the mundane mind
to become one of the earthly viceroys of God. And the chosen were few.
Nor had Warner, consciously or not, been indifferent to the sacredness
of his wardship. Never for a moment had it felt the blight of his wild
and often gross and sordid l