“I love you, Lewis.”

“Then, by God, I’ll fight it out!  Jacqueline, Jacqueline—­”

She presently freed herself.  “What are you going to do—­what are you going to do now, Lewis?”

“I will tell you what I have done, and where the danger’s greatest—­”

“The danger?”

“The danger of discovery.”

“Lewis—­will you not tell them?”

“Tell them—­”

“Is it not—­oh, Lewis, is it not the only thing to do?  Sin and suffering—­yes, yes, the whole world sins and suffers!  But oh, ignoble to sin and to reject the suffering!”

He stared at her incredulously.  “Do you know, Jacqueline,—­do you know what you are saying?”

“Will it be so hard?” she asked, and put out her arms to him.  “It is right.”

“Let me understand,” he said.  “When the mist cleared and I saw him lying there, I sat down upon a stone, and I said to myself, ’This is a strange land, and I am to eat the fruits thereof.’  For a while I did not think of moving.  You would have had me stay there as he stayed, watch there beside him until men came?”

She answered almost inaudibly, “It had been nobler.”

“And then and there to have given myself up?”

“Lewis, if it was right—­I would have said to God and the world and him, ‘It is the least that I can do!’”

He stared at her.  “By God, the amende honorable!”

There came blinding lightning, followed by thunder which seemed to shake the room.  Rand crossed to the hearth and, with his booted foot upon the iron dogs, rested his arm upon the mantel-shelf and his head upon his hand.  “I’ll think of that awhile,” he said harshly.  “That means disgrace and may mean death.”

He heard the drawing of her breath.  There was a knock at the door followed by Mammy Chloe’s voice.  “De bread an’ meat an’ wine on de table, marster.”

“Very well, Mammy, I’ll come presently,” the master answered; then, when she was gone, “This is the earth, Jacqueline.  It was long while I sat there upon the stone and saw matters as they might be upon another plane, but that appearance passed.  Because for those moments I saw its shape, I know the aspect that is before your eyes.  But it is not reality that you see; it is an appearance, thin and unsubstantial as the mist upon the hills.  Expiation, purgation, aided retribution, the criminal to spare Justice the search, and the offender against Society to turn and throw his weight into the proper scale!—­that is a dream of the world as it may become.  This is the present earth,—­earth of the tobacco-fields, earth of the struggle, earth of the fight for standing-room!  I have fought—­and I have fought—­I cannot cease to fight.”