ttle charitable with yourself, as you would with
others. Life, you know, is not such an easy game to play. Beginners
must make wrong moves now and then."

There was a long pause.

"It sounds so mild when you put it like that. But I am not a beginner. I
am quite a veteran, yet I am not seasoned. My impulses are more
imperious, more blinding than I had the least idea of." (The words
hastened on.) "Life comes and pulls one by the sleeve; stirs, prompts,
bewilders, tempts in a thousand ways; emotion rises in whirlwinds--and
one is confused, and reels and gropes and stumbles, and then some cruel,
clear day one awakes to find the print of intoxicated footsteps in the
precincts of the sanctuary, and recognises oneself as desecrator."

The Professor leant forward in his low chair. The chaffinch gave a light
chirp, as if to recall him to his duty. Hadria performed it for him. The
chaffinch flew off with the booty.

"There is no suffering so horrible as that which involves remorse or
self-contempt," he said, and his voice trembled. "To have to settle down
to look upon some part of one's action, of one's moral self, with shame
or scorn, is almost intolerable."

"Quite intolerable!"

"We will not extend to ourselves the forbearance due to erring humanity.
This puts us too much on a level with the rest--is that not often the
reason of our harsh self-judgments?"

"Oh, I have no doubt there is something mean and conceited at the bottom
of it!" exclaimed Hadria.

There was a step on the lawn behind them.

The Professor sprang up. He went to meet Valeria and they came to the
table together, talking. Valeria's eyes were bright and her manner
animated. Yes, she was going abroad. It would be delightful to meet
somewhere, if chance favoured them. She thought of Italy. And at that
magic name, they fell into reminiscences of former journeyings; they
talked of towns and temples and palaces, of art, of sunshine; and Hadria
listened silently.

Once, in her girlhood, when she was scarcely sixteen, she had gone with
her parents and Algitha for a tour in Italy. It was a short but vivid
experience which had tinged her life, leaving a memory and a longing
that never died. The movement of travel, the sense of change and
richness offered to eye and mind, remained with her always; the vision
of a strange, tumultuous, beautiful world; of exquisite Italian cities,
of forests and seas; of classic plains and snow-capped mountains; of
treasures