-block and an evil influence. I had yet
to learn that in times of mental and moral struggle the mixed fighting
forces in us resolve themselves into two cohesive powers, and strive for
mastery; that no past thought or act goes for nothing at such a time,
but creeps out from the darkness where we thought it had gone for ever,
and does battle with its kind against the common foe. There moved before
my sight three women: one, sweet and unsubstantial, wistful and mute and
very young, not of the earth earthy; one, lissom, grave, with gracious
body and warm abstracted eyes, all delicacy, strength, reserve; the
other and last, daring, cold, beautiful, with irresistible charm, silent
and compelling. And these are the three women who have influenced my
life, who fought in me then for mastery; one from out the unchangeable
past, the others in the tangible and delible present. Most of us have to
pass through such ordeals before character and conviction receive their
final bias; before human nature has its wild trouble, and then settles
into "cold rock and quiet world;" which any lesser after-shocks may
modify, but cannot radically change.

I tried to think. I felt that to be wholly a man I should turn from
those eyes drawing me on. I recalled the words of Clovelly, who had said
to me that afternoon, half laughingly: "Dr. Marmion, I wonder how many
of us wish ourselves transported permanently to that time when we
didn't know champagne from 'alter feiner madeira' or dry hock from sweet
sauterne; when a pretty face made us feel ready to abjure all the sinful
lusts of the flesh and become inheritors of the kingdom of heaven? Egad!
I should like to feel it once again. But how can we, when we have
been intoxicated with many things; when we are drunk with success and
experience; have hung on the fringe of unrighteousness; and know the
world backward, and ourselves mercilessly?"

Was I, like the drunkard, coming surely to the time when I could no
longer say yes to my wisdom, or no to my weakness? I knew that, an
hour before, in filling a phial with medicine, I found I was doing it
mechanically, and had to begin over again, making an effort to keep my
mind to my task. I think it is an axiom that no man can properly perform
the business of life who indulges in emotional preoccupation.

These thoughts, which take so long to write, passed then through my
mind swiftly; but her eyes were on me with a peculiar and confident
insistence--and I yi