erhaps not, but you have something remarkably like _idee fixe_,"
Peter said to himself compassionately.

He found her actual condition less dangerous but much more difficult
than he had anticipated. She was living wrong, that was the sum and
substance of her malady. Her life was spent confronting theories and
discounting conditions. She did not realize that it is only the
interest of our investment in life that we can sanely contribute to
the cause of living. Our capital strength and energy must be used for
the struggle for existence itself if we are to have a world of
balanced individuals. There is an arrogance involved in assuming
ourselves more humane than human that reacts insidiously on our health
and morals. Peter, looking into the twitching hectic face before him
with the telltale glint of mania in the eyes, felt himself becoming
helpless with pity for a mind gone so far askew. He felt curiously
responsible for Beulah's condition.

"She wouldn't have run herself so far aground," he thought, "if I had
been on the job a little more. I could have helped her to steer
straighter. A word here and a lift there and she would have come
through all right. Now something's got to stop her or she can't be
stopped. She'll preach once too often out of the tail of a cart on the
subject of equal guardianship,--and--"

Beulah put her hands to her face suddenly, and, sinking back into the
depths of the big cushioned chair on the edge of which she had been
tensely poised during most of the conversation, burst into tears.

"You're the only one that knows," she sobbed over and over again.
"I'm so tired, Peter, but I've got to go on and on and on. If they
stop me, I'll kill myself."

Peter crossed the room to her side and sat down on her chair-arm.

"Don't cry, dear," he said, with a hand on her head. "You're too tired
to think things out now,--but I'll help you."

She lifted a piteous face, for the moment so startlingly like that of
the dead girl he had loved that his senses were confused by the
resemblance.

"How, Peter?" she asked. "How can you help me?"

"I think I see the way," he said slowly.

He slipped to his knees and gathered her close in his arms.

"I think this will be the way, dear," he said very gently.

"Does this mean that you want me to marry you?" she whispered, when
she was calmer.

"If you will, dear," he said. "Will you?"

"I will,--if I can, if I can make it seem right to after I've thought
it al