claimed by him. Now he was straining her again. It
was too much for her. She drew back her head, held his face between her
hands, and looked him in the eyes. No, he was hard. He wanted something
else. She pleaded to him with all her love not to make it her choice.
She could not cope with it, with him, she knew not with what. But it
strained her till she felt she would break.

"Do you want it?" she asked, very gravely.

"Not much," he replied, with pain.

She turned her face aside; then, raising herself with dignity, she took
his head to her bosom, and rocked him softly. She was not to have him,
then! So she could comfort him. She put her fingers through his hair.
For her, the anguished sweetness of self-sacrifice. For him, the hate
and misery of another failure. He could not bear it--that breast which
was warm and which cradled him without taking the burden of him. So much
he wanted to rest on her that the feint of rest only tortured him. He
drew away.

"And without marriage we can do nothing?" he asked.

His mouth was lifted from his teeth with pain. She put her little finger
between her lips.

"No," she said, low and like the toll of a bell. "No, I think not."

It was the end then between them. She could not take him and relieve him
of the responsibility of himself. She could only sacrifice herself to
him--sacrifice herself every day, gladly. And that he did not want. He
wanted her to hold him and say, with joy and authority: "Stop all this
restlessness and beating against death. You are mine for a mate." She
had not the strength. Or was it a mate she wanted? or did she want a
Christ in him?

He felt, in leaving her, he was defrauding her of life. But he knew
that, in staying, stilling the inner, desperate man, he was denying his
own life. And he did not hope to give life to her by denying his own.

She sat very quiet. He lit a cigarette. The smoke went up from it,
wavering. He was thinking of his mother, and had forgotten Miriam. She
suddenly looked at him. Her bitterness came surging up. Her sacrifice,
then, was useless. He lay there aloof, careless about her. Suddenly
she saw again his lack of religion, his restless instability. He would
destroy himself like a perverse child. Well, then, he would!

"I think I must go," she said softly.

By her tone he knew she was despising him. He rose quietly.

"I'll come along with you," he answered.

She stood before the mirror pinning on her hat. How bitter, how