tolerable. The immensity of his love for Marise loomed up,
far greater than he; and before that sacred thing he hung his head, and
felt his heart breaking.

"No, that won't do. Not when it is Marise who is in question. The best,
the very best I can conceive is what I must give to Marise. A cage could
not hold her, not anything but her body, and to force her decision would
be to make a cage. No, I mustn't use the children either. They are hers
as much as mine. If all is not right between us, what would it avail
them to be with us? They must take what life brings them, like the rest
of us. If the years Marise and I have passed together, if what we have
been to each other, and are to each other, if that is not enough, then
nothing is enough. That would be a trick to play on her . . . to use my
knowledge of her vulnerable points to win. That is not what I want. What
_do_ I want? I want Marise to be happy."

He had advanced a step since the last time he had told himself this, for
now he said it with a dreadful calm, his heart aching but not faltering.

But he could go no further. There were limits to what he could endure.
He fell into a trance-like state of passivity, his body and mind
exhausted.

As he lay thus, fallen and prostrate, there soared up out of a part of
him that was neither mind nor body, but was nevertheless himself,
something swift and beautiful and living, something great enough at last
to measure its greatness with the immensity of his love for Marise.

What was it?

It was this . . . for a moment he had it all clear, as though he had died
and it were something told him in another world . . . he did not want
Marise for himself; he did not even want her to be happy; he wanted her
to be herself, to be all that Marise could ever grow to be, he wanted
her to attain her full stature so far as any human being could do this
in this life.

And to do that she must be free.

For an instant he looked full at this, his heart flooded with glory. And
then the light went out.

He was there in the blackness again, unhappy beyond any suffering he had
thought he could bear.

He lay still, feeling Marise beside him, the slow, quiet rhythm of her
breathing. Was she awake or sleeping? What would happen if he should
allow the fear and suffering which racked him to become articulate? If
he should cry out to her, she would not turn away. He knew Marise. She
would never turn away from fear and suffering. "But I can't do