describe his own condition rather in the rhetoric of the
pulpit than in the duller language of a psychological narrative. He had
certainly given Morewood one false impression, or rather, perhaps
Morewood had drawn one false though natural inference for himself. He
thought of Stafford, and his letter passed on the same view to Eugene,
as of a man suffering tortures that passed enduring. Perhaps at the
moment of their interview such was the case: the dramatic picture
Stafford had drawn had for the moment terrified afresh the man who drew
it. His normal state of mind, however, at this time was not unhappy. He
was wretched now and then by effort; he was tortured by the sense of sin
when he remembered to be. But for the most part he was too completely
conquered by his passion to do other than rejoice in it. Possessed
wholly by it, and full of an undoubting confidence that Claudia returned
his love, or needed only to realize it fully to return it fully, he had
silenced all opposition, and went forth to his wooing with an
exultation and a triumph that no transitory self-judgments could greatly
diminish. Life lay before him, long and full and rich and sweet. Let
trouble be what it would, and right be what it might, life and love were
in his own hands. The picture of a man giving up all he thought worth
having, driven in misery by a force he could not resist to seek a remedy
that he despaired of gaining--a remedy which, even if gained, would
bring him nothing but fresh pain--this picture, over which Eugene was
mourning in honest and perplexed friendship, never took form as a true
presentment of himself to the man it was supposed to embody. If Eugene
had known this, he would probably have felt less sympathy and more
rivalry, and would have assented to Ayre's view of the situation rather
than doubtingly maintained his own. A man may sometimes change himself
more easily than he can persuade his friends to recognize the change.

Stafford left the Retreat the morning after his meeting with Morewood,
feeling, he confessed to himself, as if he had taken a somewhat unfair
advantage of its hospitality. The result of his sojourn there, if known
to the Founder, might have been a trial of that enthusiast's consistency
to his principles, and Stafford was glad to be allowed to depart, as he
had come, unquestioned. He came straight to London, and turned at once
to the task of finding Claudia as soon as he could. The most likely
quarter for info