poch was the coming of George
Thornton to claim his own.

CHAPTER V

"_And when it fails, fight as we will, we die._"

George Thornton was a man who believed, or thought he did, in two
controlling things in life: Intellect, and the training of intellect, by
education and stern attention, to the task at stake.

He had intellect and he had devoted himself to his task, that of worldly
success, but he had never recognized nor admitted the necessity of the
spiritual in his development, and so it had failed him--and, in a deep,
tragic way, he was dying. Had been dying through the years since his
devil took the reins, in a mad hour, and rode him.

There had been weeks and months after his leaving Meredith when his soul
cried aloud to him but was smothered. He would not heed. He let business
and coarse, pleasurable excitement gain power over him, and when they
lagged he drank his conscience to sleep.

He knew the danger which lay in the last aid to deaden his pain, so he
rarely sought it.

But something new had entered in--something that, in hours when he was
obliged to face facts, frightened him, and after months abroad, months
in which he nursed his resentment against Meredith and felt his defeat
with her, he decided to do the only decent thing left for him to
do--apologize and set her free.

And then he found her note. The bald, naked statement drove all power to
act for the moment from him. Close upon that shock, which he smilingly
covered, by explaining on very commonplace grounds, came Doris's letter.
The purest elements and the most brutal in many natures lie close. They
did in Thornton. Had Meredith been a wiser, a more human and loving
woman, she might have helped Thornton to his full stature; but failing
him by her helpless insufficiency, she drove him to his shoals.

Had she by the turn of Fortune been obliged, as many women are, to have
borne her lot though her heart broke her child might have saved her and
the man also--for Thornton had the paternal instincts, though they were
unsuspected and wholly dormant.

Again Meredith had defeated him. What could he do with a helpless baby
on his hands? What else was there to do but accept Doris's offer? And of
course the child was dead to him except by the cold, legal tie that
bound them together. That, Thornton grimly held to.

He would press it, too, in his good time!

But Thornton's next few years proved to be a succession of mis-steps
with the inev