was in subjection. The abrupt consciousness of how it was with him
excited him tremendously. After the long interval of years, was he to
feel again the powerful fever, and for a woman how different from the
woman he had loved? She stood, in her young purity, at one end of the
chain of years, and Mrs. Chepstow--did she really stand at the other?

He seemed to see these two looking at each other across the space that
was set by Time, and for a moment his face contracted. But he had
changed while traversing that space. Then he was an eager boy, in the
joy of his bounding youth. Now he was a vigorous man. And during the
interval that separated boy from man had come up in him his strong love
of humanity, his passion for the development of the good that lies
everywhere, like the ore in gold-bearing earth. That love had perhaps
been given to him to combine the two loves, the altruistic love, and the
love for a woman bringing its quick return.

The two faces of women surely softened as they gazed now upon each
other.

Such loves in combination might crown his life with splendour. Nigel
thought that, with the enthusiasm which was his birthright, which set
him so often apart from other men. And, moving beneath such a splendour,
how absolutely he could defy the world's opinion! Its laughter would be
music, its sneering word only the signal to a smile.

But--he must think--he must think--

He sprang up, pulled up his loose sleeves to his shoulders, tucked them
together, and with bared arms leaned out to the night, holding his hands
against his cheeks.