uance of a
resolve slowly forming from the moment he met Mrs. Noel in the stone
flagged passage of Burracombe Farm. If she would have him and since last
evening he believed she would--he intended to marry her.

It has been said that except for one lapse his life had been austere, but
this is not to assert that he had no capacity for passion. The contrary
was the case. That flame which had been so jealously guarded smouldered
deep within him--a smothered fire with but little air to feed on. The
moment his spirit was touched by the spirit of this woman, it had flared
up. She was the incarnation of all that he desired. Her hair, her eyes,
her form; the tiny tuck or dimple at the corner of her mouth just where a
child places its finger; her way of moving, a sort of unconscious swaying
or yielding to the air; the tone in her voice, which seemed to come not
so much from happiness of her own as from an innate wish to make others
happy; and that natural, if not robust, intelligence, which belongs to
the very sympathetic, and is rarely found in women of great ambitions or
enthusiasms--all these things had twined themselves round his heart. He
not only dreamed of her, and wanted her; he believed in her. She filled
his thoughts as one who could never do wrong; as one who, though a wife
would remain a mistress, and though a mistress, would always be the
companion of his spirit.

It has been said that no one spoke or gossiped about women in Miltoun's
presence, and the tale of her divorce was present to his mind simply in
the form of a conviction that she was an injured woman. After his
interview with the vicar, he had only once again alluded to it, and that
in answer to the speech of a lady staying at the Court: "Oh! yes, I
remember her case perfectly. She was the poor woman who----" "Did not,
I am certain, Lady Bonington." The tone of his voice had made someone
laugh uneasily; the subject was changed.

All divorce was against his convictions, but in a blurred way he admitted
that there were cases where release was unavoidable. He was not a man to
ask for confidences, or expect them to be given him. He himself had
never confided his spiritual struggles to any living creature; and the
unspiritual struggle had little interest for Miltoun. He was ready at
any moment to stake his life on the perfection of the idol he had set up
within his soul, as simply and straightforwardly as he would have placed
his body in front of