louds, and the feeling of autumn was in
the air, but David's eyes were blurred, and he saw nothing before him.
The doctor's voice broke the silence with sudden impulse.

"In this she speaks as if she knew nothing about your marriage."

"I told you I had neglected her," cried David, contritely.

"But, m--man alive! why--why in the name of all the gods--"

"All England is filled with fools," cried the younger man, desperately.
"I could never in the world make them understand me or my motives. I
gave it up long ago. I've not told my mother, to save her from a
needless sorrow that would be inflicted on her by her friends. They
would all flock to her and pester her with their outcry of 'How very
extraordinary!' I can hear them and see them now. I tell you, if a man
steps out of the beaten track over there--if he attempts to order his
own life, marry to please himself, or cut his coat after any pattern
other than the ordinary conventional lines,--even the boys on the street
will fling stones at him. Her patronizing friends would, at the very
least, politely raise their eyebrows. She is proud and sensitive, and
any fling at her sons is a blow to her."

"But what--"

"I say I couldn't tell her. I tell you I have been drinking from the cup
of happiness. I have drained it to the last drop. My wife is mine. She
does not belong to those people over there, to be talked over, and dined
over, and all her beauty and fineness overlooked through their
monocles--brutes! My mountain flower in her homespun dress--only poets
could understand and appreciate her."

"B--but what were you going to do about it?"

"Do about it? I meant to keep her to myself until the right time came.
Perhaps in another year bring her here and begin life in a modest way,
and let my mother visit us and see for herself. I was planning it out,
slowly--but this-- You see, Doctor, their ideas are all warped over
there. They accept all that custom decrees and have but the one point of
view. The true values of life are lost sight of. They have no hilltops
like Cassandra's. Only the poets have."

A quizzical smile played about the old man's mouth. He came and laid his
arm across David's shoulders, and the act softened the slight sting of
his words. "And--you call yourself a poet?"

"Not that," said the young man, humbly, "but I have been learning. I
would have scorned to be called a poet until I learned of this girl and
her father. I thought I had ideals, and fe