our physical mate. You imagined
this emotion to be a mysterious revelation which can come but once.
Your imagination in its excited condition, of course, gave to your
first-found mate all sorts of divine attributes which he did not
possess. You were `in love' with a puppet of your own creation, and
hypnotized yourself into the delusion that James Anthony was your one
and only mate, your knight, your hero.

"In a very important sense this was true. Your intuitions could not make
a mistake on so vital an issue. But you immediately rushed into marriage
and your union has been perfected by the birth of a child. Whether you
are happy or unhappy in marriage does not depend on the reality of love.
Happiness in marriage is based on something else."

"On what?"

"The joy and peace that comes from oneness of spirit, tastes, culture
and character. I know this from the deepest experiences of life and the
widest observation."

"You have loved?" she asked softly.

"Twice----"

A silence fell between them.

"Shall I tell you, little mother?" he finally asked quietly.

"Please."

He seated himself and looked into the skies beyond the peaks across the
valley.

"Ten years ago I met my first mate. The meeting was fortunate for both.
She was a woman of gentle birth, of beautiful spirit. Our courtship was
ideal. We thought alike, we felt alike, she loved my profession even--an
unusual trait in a woman. She thought it so noble in its aims that
the petty jealousy that sometimes wrecks a doctor's life was to her an
unthinkable crime. The first year was the nearest to heaven that I had
ever gotten down here.

"And then, little mother, by one of those inexplicable mysteries of
nature she died when our baby was born. For a while the light of the
world went out. I quit New York, gave up my profession and came here
just to lie in the sun on this mountainside and try to pull myself
together. I didn't think life could ever be worth living again. But
it was. I found about me so much of human need--so much ignorance and
helplessness--so much to pity and love, I forgot the ache in my own
heart in bringing joy to others.

"I had money enough. I gave up the ambitions of greed and strife and set
my soul to higher tasks. For nine years I've devoted my leisure hours
to the study of Motherhood as the hope of a nobler humanity. But for the
great personal sorrow that came to me in the death of my wife and baby I
should never have realized the t