knew, as he had known for long, what must have happened if he had persuaded Andree to marry him. She could have been no helpmate for his soul. He could never have made her other than she was. And yet nothing but the knowledge that he could not get her had parted him from her. Then those things which he used to talk of. That conception about the Norse Edda: he had believed that he had stumbled on a great truth there. But in how far had he acted on it? Dick had frankly acknowledged his preference for Gigungagap. Tempest had talked of the higher planes—he could remember now the thrill and the certainty with which he had spoken. Then were all his great dreams, all his aspirations and beliefs dead leaves only; ropes of sand; dust that the first wind of desire blew out of existence?
"Oh God! Not that! Not that!" he cried. He had surely struggled. He had schooled himself, to accept the inevitable—when he was very sure that it was the inevitable. He had now lifted this love into a sacred thing which he could think of without shame and without passion. But who had enabled him to do this? Not his own strength. Not his own conscience nor his love for that work which he had believed meant more to him than anything else. It was Dick who had thrust him back; brutally, mercilessly, but faithfully into the battle. And he could not forgive and he could not forget because Andree had been sacrificed that this should be accomplished. And yet he had consented that Dick should sacrifice Jennifer for his work's sake. He had seen very clearly there how the individual must perish to further the growth of the whole. But where the matter touched himself; where Andree had to go that he might give what the years, what his birth and training and traditions, had made him for the aid of the many, what had he cared for his work then?
He got up, walking through the dusky room as Dick had walked on the night when he pleaded with Jennifer. Through these months Dick must have been fighting nearly as stern a battle as himself. He would suffer for what Jennifer might have to undergo with Ducane as Tempest suffered for Andree. But Dick had never let his work go. Wild-hearted, bitter-minded unbeliever though he was, he
