m boulder to boulder as the
river wimpled and laughed in mockery of his clumsy tender of protection
and her rejection of it, and Beauvayse's tall figure stood, erect and
triumphant, on the flower-starred bank, waiting to recommence his wooing
until the intruder should be gone, divining, as Saxham had instinctively
known, the hidden passion that rent and tortured him, glowing with the
consciousness of secret mastery....

If this meek, thin-blooded young clergyman who walks beside him might have
won her, it seems to Saxham that he could have borne it. But that
Beauvayse of all others should venture to approach her, presume to rear an
image of himself in the shrine of her pure breast; win her from her high
aims and lofty ideals with a bold look and a few whispered words, and,
having thrown his honourable name into the lap of a light woman as
indifferently as a jewelled trinket, should dare to offer Lynette Mildare
dishonour, is monstrous, hideous, unbearable....

How comes it that she of all women should be so easily allured, so lightly
drawn aside? Was there no baser conquest within reach that this white,
virginal, slender saint should become _his_ prey? Shall she be made even
as those others of whom she spoke, when the veil of a girlish innocence
was drawn aside, and strange and terrible knowledge looked out of those
clear eyes, and she said, in answer to his question:

"They are the most unhappy of all the souls that suffer upon earth. For
they are the slaves, and the victims, and the martyrs of the unrelenting,
merciless, dreadful pleasures of men...."

Of men like Beauvayse.

Not only swart and shaggy, or pale and bloated beast-men, or white-haired,
toothless, blear-eyed satyrs grown venerable in vice. But beautiful,
youthful profligates, limbed like the gods and fauns of the old Greek
sculptors; soft of skin, golden of hair, with sleepy eyes like green
jewels, soft persuasive voices with which to pour poisoned words into
innocent and guileless ears, and the bold, brave blood of old-time heroes
running in their veins, prompting them to the doing of dashing, reckless,
gallant deeds, no less than sins of lust and luxury.

Let him look to it, this splendid young soldier with the ancient name,
hope of his House, pride of his Regiment. Let him look to it how he has
dealt with her, who had no thought or dream but to save others from the
fate he destines for her, until his cursed, beautiful face smiled down
into her ow