hrow himself on the floor at her feet and tell
her all--and then rise up young and pure and whole again, able to feel
as others did. But he could not; an icy voice within him told that the
days of his spring-time were gone for ever. And as he felt her arms
about him once more, he could only bend down humbly and touch her hair
with his lips in silence, as if begging her to understand.

Warm drops were falling on his knees, warm drops fell on her hair.
Welling from deep sources--but unlike, and flowing different ways.

DARK FURROWS

Sunday morning--a calm and peaceful time. Olof was up, and sat combing
his hair before the glass.

"Those wrinkles there on the temples are getting deeper," he thought.
"Well, after all, I suppose it looks more manly."

He laid down the comb, turned his head slightly, and looked in the
glass again.

"Paler, too, perhaps," he thought again. "Well, I'm no longer a
boy...."

He moved as if to rise.

"Look once more--a little closer," urged the glass.

Olof brushed his moustache and smiled.

"Can't you see anything?" the glass went on, with something like a
sneer. "Under the eyes, for instance?"

And suddenly he saw. The face that stared at him from the glass was
pale, and marked by the lines and wrinkles of those past years. And
under the eyes were two dark grey furrows, like heavy flourishes to
underline a word.

"Is it possible?" he cried, with a shudder.

"Is it any wonder?" said the glass coldly.

The face in the glass was staring at him yet, with the dark furrows
under the eyes.

"But what--how did they come there?" asked Olof in dismay.

"Need you ask?" said the glass. "Well, you have got your 'mark,'
anyhow--though it was not one you asked for."

* * * * *

The face in the mirror stared at him; the dark furrows were there
still. He would have turned his head away, or closed his eyes, but
could not. He felt as if some great strong man were behind him with a
whip, bidding him sternly "Look!"

And he looked.

"Look closer--closer yet!" commanded his tormentor. "A few deep
lines--and what more?"

Olof looked again. The plainer furrows tailed off into a host of
smaller lines and tiny folds, this way and that, there seemed no end
to them. And again he shuddered.

"Count them!" cried the voice behind him.

"Impossible--they--they are so small!"

"Small they may be--but how many are there?"

Olof bent forward and tried to co