t
grovel at the mercy of the moral judgment of the meanest and
grossest among his fellow-creatures, as is the case with the
Church, with medicine, with the politician, and with the
schoolmaster. But Alan could not help thinking all the same how
people would misinterpret and misunderstand his relations with the
woman he loved, if he modelled them strictly upon Herminia's
wishes. It was hateful, it was horrible to have to con the thing
over, where that faultless soul was concerned, in the vile and
vulgar terms other people would apply to it; but for Herminia's
sake, con it over so he must; and though he shrank from the effort
with a deadly shrinking, he nevertheless faced it. Men at the
clubs would say he had seduced Herminia. Men at the clubs would
lay the whole blame of the episode upon him; and he couldn't bear
to be so blamed for the sake of a woman, to save whom from the
faintest shadow of disgrace or shame he would willingly have died a
thousand times over. For since Herminia had confessed her love to
him yesterday, he had begun to feel how much she was to him. His
admiration and appreciation of her had risen inexpressibly. And
was he now to be condemned for having dragged down to the dust that
angel whose white wings he felt himself unworthy to touch with the
hem of his garment?

And yet, once more, when he respected her so much for the sacrifice
she was willing to make for humanity, would it be right for him to
stand in her way, to deter her from realizing her own highest
nature? She was Herminia just because she lived in that world of
high hopes, just because she had the courage and the nobility to
dare this great thing. Would it be right of him to bring her down
from that pedestal whereon she stood so austere, and urge upon her
that she should debase herself to be as any other woman,--even as
Ethel Waterton? For the Watertons had brought him there to propose
to Ethel.

For hours he tossed and turned and revolved these problems. Rain
beat on the leaded panes of the Waterton dormers. Day dawned, but
no light came with it to his troubled spirit. The more he thought
of this dilemma, the more profoundly he shrank from the idea of
allowing himself to be made into the instrument for what the world
would call, after its kind, Herminia's shame and degradation. For
even if the world could be made to admit that Herminia had done
what she did from chaste and noble motives,--which considering what
we all k