bout her--thinking: "She is growing
up. She belongs here;" looking in the faces of cottagers' children and
asking himself: "Are you she? Or you? Or you?" Then he had left off
thinking about her.

She had come into his life again, into his very home, and he had never
once asked himself: "Is Norah she?" No, because God would not allow
him to do so; it had suited God's purpose to paralyze the outlet of
all natural thought in that direction. So she grew tall and strong
under his eyes--the dreaded imp of the wood eating his food, squatting
at his own fireside; changing into the imagined nymph of the wood that
he had seen only in dreams; becoming the very spirit of the wood--yes,
the wood's avenging spirit.

He moved from his recumbent position, sat up, and drew out Norah's
letter from the breast pocket of his jacket. He read her letter again,
and his sadness and despair deepened. There was no revolt now; he felt
nothing but black misery. He thought: "I used to fear that she would
be the means of my death, and now death is coming from her. This
letter is my death-warrant."

There was no other way out of his troubles. Life had become
unendurable; he could not go on with it. And this thought became now a
fixed determination. He must copy the example of other and better men;
he must do for himself, as old Bates and many others had done for
themselves when they found their lives too hard for them.

If he didn't--oh, the whole thing was hopeless. Suppose that he
rebelled against this cruel necessity. No, he saw too plainly the
torment that would lie before him--disgrace, grief of wife and
children, soon all the world wishing him dead. And no joy. The girl
would be taken from him. The world--or God--would never allow him to
hide and be happy with her.

Suppose he were to carry her off to the Colonies, and attempt to begin
the new life that he had planned fifteen years ago. Impossible--he was
too old; nearly all his strength had gone from him; the mere idea of
fighting his way uphill again filled him with a sick fatigue. And the
girl, when she saw him failing, physically and mentally, would desert
him. _Her_ love could not last--it was too unnatural; and when,
contrasting him with other men, she saw that he was feeble, exhausted,
utterly worn out, she would shake off the bondage of his
companionship. No, there was no possible hope for the future of such a
union.

He thought: "Other men at fifty are often hale and hearty, cho