n't
replace it. I couldn't--"

The austere asylum of their pains. He looked back upon it as he had
unfolded it. He looked forward across it as, most stern and bleak, it
awaited them. He cried with a sudden loudness, as though he protested,
not before her, but before arbitrament in the high court of destiny,
"But I cannot help you upward; I can only lead you downward."

She said, "Upward, Marko. You help me upward."

Her gentle acquiescence!

There swept upon him, as one reckless in sudden surge of intoxication,
most passionate desire to take her in his arms; and on her lips to crush
to fragments the barriers of conduct he had in damnable sophistries
erected; and in her ears to breathe, "You are beloved to me! Honour,
honesty, virtue, rectitude--words, darling, words, words, words!
Beloved, let the foundations of the world go spinning, so we have love."

He called most terribly upon himself, and his self answered him; but
shaken by that most fierce onset he said thickly, "I'll have this. If
ever it grows too hard for you, tell me--tell me."

VII

It must be kept locked. In grievous doubt of his own strength, in
loneliness more lonely for his doubt, more deeply, as advancing summer
lengthened out his waking solitude, he explored among his inmost
thoughts; more eagerly, in relief from their perplexities, turned to the
companionship of Fargus and the Perches. How very, very glad they
always were to see him! It was the strong happiness they manifested in
greeting him that most deeply gave the pleasure he had in their company.
He often pondered the fact. It was, in their manifestation of it, as
though he brought them something,--something very pleasurable to them
and that they much wanted. Certainly he, for his own part, received such
from them: a sense of warmth, a kindling of the spirit, a glowing of all
his affections and perceptions.

His mind would explore curiously along this train of thought. He came to
determine that infinitely the most beautiful thing in life was a face
lighting up with the pleasure of friendship: in its apotheosis
irradiating with the wonder of love. That frequent idea of his of the
"wanting something" look in the faces of half the people one saw: he
thought that the greeting of some one loved might well be a touching of
the quality that was to seek. The weariest and the most wistful faces
were sheerly transfigured by it. But he felt it was not entirely the
secret. The greeting passed; t