n't understood, after
all. But he will understand. No, don't tell him anything, grannie, only
that I'll write to him every mail and that I shall come home. He will
believe me. Now I must go and pack."

But grannie held her anxiously.

"I'm afraid I've made you troubled," she said.

"No, you've made me rich. I don't care what happens to me now. I can
face it all. Dear, dear grannie! I thank you for forgiving me." She
kissed the two kind hands, and stood beside the bed for a minute. "He
comes to you in the morning, doesn't he? Tell him all that then. Only
tell him I couldn't bear to say good-by. But I shall come back, and
there will be welcomes, not good-bys." She went softly out, and grannie
heard the closing of the door.

Rose, in her own room, did not begin at once to pack. She was alive
again with the most brilliant triumph and delight. Her father's
influence had slipped from her, and she stood there shuddering in the
delicious cold of a strong wind of life. If she was to go forth, to make
herself whole with her own destiny, she was going, not as the puppet of
his will, but exhilarated by marvels. There were still large things in
the world, strong loyalties, pure faithfulness. She felt like a warrior
girded with a sword.

XXV

Osmond was sitting in his playhouse under the tree. He did not expect
Rose to come, but he had things to think about, and in the playhouse he
never felt alone. He was studying his own life as it had been and as it
was. The past looked to him all submission and a still endurance. He
marveled that a man could live so long and not look man's lot in the
face. A thousand passions had been born in him at once, and they seemed
almost equally good to him because they were all so strong. He sat there
drunk with the lust of power and reviewing his desires as, one by one,
they came and smiled upon him.

First he desired a woman, the one woman, Rose, not now romantically
through the mist of dreams, but as the wild man wants his mate. Was that
love? he asked himself, in this dispassionate scrutiny, and decided
that, as men chose to name it, it was love. They crowned it with
garlands, they sang about it and drank to it, but that was only to make
it sweeter.

He remembered again the passion of protection he had felt for her, the
desire to slay whatever crossed her path. That was hate, he knew, and it
seemed to him good. All these things were the forces that made up life,
and life was a battl