m of his high-flown tragedy.

Myra's simple loving view of the case had been the right one; yet,
thrusting it from him, he had ruthlessly plunged himself and her into a
hopeless abyss of needless suffering.

By degrees he slowly realised that in so doing he had deliberately
inflicted a more cruel wrong upon the woman he loved, than that which he
had unwittingly done her in the past.

Remorse and regret gnawed at his heart, added to an almost unbearable
hunger for Myra. Yet he could not bring himself to return to her with
this second and still more humiliating confession of failure.

His one hope was that Myra would find their separation impossible to
endure, and would send for him. But the days went by, and Myra made no
sign. She had said she would never send for him unless assured that
coming to her would mean happiness to him. To this decision she quietly
adhered.

In a strongly virile man, love towards a woman is, in its essential
qualities, naturally selfish. Its keynote is, "I need"; its dominant, "I
want"; its full major chord, "I must possess."

On the other hand, the woman's love for the man is essentially unselfish.
Its keynote is, "He needs"; its dominant, "I am his, to do with as he
pleases"; its full major chord, "Let me give all." In the Book of
Canticles, one of the greatest love-poems ever written, we find this
truth exemplified; we see the woman's heart learning its lesson, in a
fine crescendo of self-surrender. In the first stanza she says: "My
Beloved is mine, and I am his"; in the second, "I am my Beloved's and he
is mine." But in the third, all else is merged in the instinctive joy of
giving: "I am my Beloved's, and his desire is towards me."

This is the natural attitude of the sexes, designed by an all-wise
Creator; but designed for a condition of ideal perfection. No perfect law
could be framed for imperfection. Therefore, if the working out prove
often a failure, the fault lies in the imperfection of the workers, not
in the perfection of the law. In those rare cases where the love is
ideal, the man's "I take" and the woman's "I give" blend into an ideal
union, each completing and modifying the other. But where sin of any kind
comes in, a false note has been struck in the divine harmony, and the
grand chord of mutual love fails to ring true.

Into their perfect love, Jim Airth had introduced the discord of false
pride. It had become the basis of his line of action, and their symphony
of l