nt thought gave force to his words and how the sincerity and
passion that rang in his voice reached if but for a moment the hearts of
men. When he thought of her mentality he doubted that she would be his,
she seemed so high above him. It was when he thought of her solely as a
Woman, when he remembered the smile of her parting, the hand-clinging
that was almost a caress, the tender "Come back to me again, Ned!" that
he felt himself her equal in his Manhood and dreamed his dream of how he
would woo and win her.

And now! Ah, now, he knew himself and knew her. He realised all that he
was, all that he might have been. He would have wooed her and Nemesis
struck him on the mouth, struck him dumb.

There come moments in our lives when we see ourselves. For years, for a
generation, till dying often, we live our lives and do not know except by
name the Ego that dwells within. We face death unflinchingly, as most men
do, and it never speaks. We love and we hate, with a lightness that is
held civilised, and it never stirs. We suffer and mourn and laugh and
sneer and it lies hidden. Then something stirs us to the very base of our
being and self-consciousness comes. And happy, thrice happy, in spite of
all sorrow and pain, no matter what has been or what awaits him, is he to
whom self-consciousness does not bring the self reproach that dieth not,
the remorse that never is quite quenched. He would have wooed and he was
dumb. For with a flash his life uprose before him. He saw himself naked
and he was ashamed.

Tremblingly, shaken with anguish, he saw himself--unfit to look into
the eyes of a woman such as this. Like loathsome images of a drunkard's
nightmare scenes that were past came to him. Upon his lips were kisses
that stung and festered, around his neck were the impress of arms that
dragged him down, into his eyes stared other eyes taunting him with the
evil glances that once seemed so dear. What had he of manhood to offer to
this pure woman. It seemed to him a blasphemy even to stand there by her.
His passion fled. He only felt a pitiful, gnawing, hopeless,
indescribable longing.

What he had been! How he had drunk and drunk and drunk again of the
filthy pools wherewith we civilised peoples still our yearnings for the
crystal spring of Love, that the dragon of Social Injustice guards from
us so well! His sins rose in front of him. They were sins now as they had
never been before. The monogamy of his race triumphed in him. F