She soon learned how far she could go, and whenever he became restive,
she yielded.

He was seized with a fanatical longing to make her a mother. He
thought it might make a woman of her, bring out all that was good and
wholesome in her. But the future seemed to hold no promise on that
score.

Had ambition, the selfish passion of the individual, destroyed the
source of life? He wondered....

One morning she informed him that she was going away for a few days to
stay with her friends.

When he came home on the evening of the day of her departure and found
the house empty, his soul was tormented by a cruel feeling of loss and
longing. All of a sudden it became clear to him that he loved her with
every fibre of his being. The house seemed desolate; it was just as if
a funeral had taken place. When dinner was served he stared at her
vacant chair and hardly touched his food.

After supper he lit the chandelier in the drawing-room. He sat down in
her corner of the sofa. He fingered her needlework which she had left
behind--it was a tiny jacket for a stranger's baby in a newly-founded
creche. There was the needle, still sticking in the calico, just as
she had left it. He pricked his finger with it as if to find solace in
the ecstasy of pain.

Presently he lighted a candle and went into her bedroom. As he stood
on the threshold, he shaded the flame with his hand and looked round