been created solely for one another; like two halves of a circle,
they are intended to meet and form the perfect round, and all the
elements of creation, spiritual and material, will work their
hardest to pull them together. Such natures, I consider, should
absolutely and imperatively be joined in marriage. It then becomes
a divine decree. Even grant, if you like, that the natures so
joined are evil, and that the sympathy between them is of a more
or less reprehensible character, it is quite as well that they
should unite, and that the result of such an union should be seen.
The evil might come out of them in a family of criminals which the
law could exterminate with advantage to the world in general.
Whereas on the other hand, given two fine and aspiring natures
with perfect sympathy between them, as perfect as the two notes of
a perfect chord, the children of such a marriage would probably be
as near gods as humanity could bring them. I speak as a scientist
merely. Such consequences are not foreseen by the majority, and
marriages as a rule take place between persons who are by no means
made for each other. Besides, a kind of devil comes into the
business, and often prevents the two sympathetic natures
conjoining. Love-matters alone are quite sufficient to convince me
that there IS a devil as well as a divinity that 'shapes our
ends.'"

"You speak as if you yourself had loved, Doctor," said Gervase,
with a half smile.

"And so I have," replied the Doctor, calmly. "I have loved to the
full as passionately and ardently as even you can love. I thank
God the woman I loved died,--I could never have possessed her, for
she was already wedded,--and I would not have disgraced her by