ond, without glancing at him, knew exactly
how he looked, and thought bitterly that to Peter Rose was only one of a
hundred beautiful things that made the earth a treasury. And to Osmond
there was but one, and that was Rose.

Peter took the path homeward, and Osmond kept on across the field. At
the farthest bound, he stepped over the stone wall into the bordering
tangle on the other side, and crossed that field also and went on into
the pasture, to the pines. This land was his, and the deep woods,
stretching forth in a glimmering twilight, had been in many moods his
best resort. He did not enter far, but sat down in a little covert where
in spring there were delicate flowers. There he faced himself.

Everything brought its penalty, even life. This he knew at last. He
could not feed on what he called his kinship with Rose and escape the
suffering from a bond unfulfilled. Instead of halting outside the garden
of being, smelling its fragrance and thankful for a breath, he was
inside with other men who owned the garden and felt free to eat the
fruit. He had never really been outside the garden at all. He had merely
been turning away from the blossoming trees, denying himself the
certainty of what the fruit might be, working carefully about the roots
and learning the unseeing patience of the earthworm. And the one flower
had bloomed in the garden at last, so sweet he could not ignore it, so
white it lighted the air like a lamp that was stronger than the sun. He
had bade himself never to forget that he was not like other men; but he
was exactly like other men, for he loved a woman.

As he sat there, overcome by this conviction of the tyranny of the
universe, one thought pierced him like the light of stars. He could have
made her happy. A sweet exultancy told him that her nature turned to him
as irrevocably as the needle to the north. He could sway and dominate
her. He could comfort her with the unconsidered tenderness that, when he
thought of her, came with his breath. As by a revelation he understood
what she had meant when she told him how love had been her waiting
dream. In a passion of sympathy he saw her trailing through sad
undergrowths in pursuit of that luring light--now stumbling in the bog
of earthy desires other hands had led her to, now pricked by thorns of
disappointment, but never for a moment sullied through that wretched
progress; and when the marsh was past, washing her garments and her feet
in the water of