" he thought,
"there'd be a bust-up in two minutes." He even smiled grimly to think of
that evening of the eclipse when, shaken by the awful beauty of eternal
order, he had, for just one high moment, dreamed that he, too, could
attain the orderliness of Truth--and tell Eleanor. "Idiot!" he said,
contemptuously. Probably Maurice touched his lowest level when he said
that; for to be ashamed of an aspiration, to be contemptuous of emotion,
is to sin against the Holy Ghost.

When Maurice reached the camp he stood for a while looking about him.
The shack had not wintered well: the door sagged on a broken hinge, and
the stovepipe had blown over and lay rusting on the roof. In the
blackened circle of stones were some charred logs, which made him think
of the camp fire on that night of Eleanor's courage and love and terror.
He even reverted to those first excuses for her: "She nearly killed
herself for me. Nervous prostration, Doctor Bennett said. I suppose a
woman never gets over that. Poor Eleanor!" he said, softening; "it
would kill her ... if she knew." He sat down and looked off across the
valley ... "What am I going to do?" he said to himself. "I can't make her
happy; I'd like to, but you can't reason with her any more than if she
was a child. Edith has ten times her sense! How absurd she is about
Edith. Lord! what would she do if she knew about Lily!"

He reflected, playing with the mere horror of the thought, upon just how
complete the "bust-up" would be if she knew! He realized that he had
undeserved good luck with Lily; she hadn't fastened herself on him. She
was decent about that; if she'd been a different sort, he might have had
a nasty time. But Lily was a sport--he'd say that for her; she hadn't
clawed at him! And she had protested that she didn't want any money, and
wouldn't take it! And she hadn't taken it. He had made some occasional
presents, but nothing of any value. He had given her nothing, hardly
even a thought (except the thought that he was an ass), since last May.
Thinking of her now, he had another of those pangs of shame which had
stabbed him so at first, but to which of late he had grown callous. The
shame of having been the one--after all his goody-goody talk!--to pull
her off the track; still, she was straight again now. He was quite sure
of that. "You can tell when they're straight," he thought, heavily.
Perhaps, in the winter, he would send her some flowers. He thought of
the bulbs on the window