e forward and did a turn of his
own. Hamilton looked away. What was this man to the little circle?
he wondered. He could not keep his mind off that one query? Were
they his slaves? willing or unwilling? did they constitute his
harem? or were they paid, independent workers? His mind was made up
to get speech with this one girl, at least, that evening. This
delightful feeling of interest, this pleasure, even this keen
disgust, all were so welcome to him in the dreary mental state of
indifference that had become his habit, that he welcomed them
eagerly, and could not let them go. Beyond this there was rising
within him, suddenly and overwhelmingly, the force of Life,
indignant at the long repression it had been subjected to. Man may
be a civilized being, accustomed to the artificial restraints and
laws he has laid upon himself, but there remains within him still
that primitive nature that knows nothing, and never will learn
anything of those laws, and which leaps up suddenly after years of
its prison-life in overpowering revolt, and says, "Joy is my
birthright. I will have it!"

This moment is the crisis of most lives. It was with Hamilton now,
and it seemed suddenly to him that twenty years of fidelity to an
unloved, unloving woman was enough. The debt contracted at the
altar twenty years before had been paid off. The promise, given
under a misunderstanding to one who had wilfully deceived him, was
wiped out. It was a marvel to him in those moments how it had held
him so long.

Hamilton had one of those keen, brilliant minds that make their
decisions quickly, and rarely regret them. He took his resolution
now. That prisoner in revolt within him should be free; he would
strike off the fetters he had worn too long and vainly. He was
before the open book of Life, at that page where he had stood so
long. With a firm decisive hand he would take the new page, and
turn it over. That last page, on which his wife's name was written
large, was completely done with, closed.

The old joyous spirit, the keen eagerness for love and joy and
life, the Pagan's gay rejoicing in it, that had been such a marked
feature of his disposition before his marriage, came back to him,
rushed through him, refilled him.

His marriage, with its disillusionment, had crushed it out of him
for a time, and, with that same decisiveness that marked him now,
he had turned over the pages of youthful dreams and joys and loves,
and opened the next page of