No need for reason or intelligence to knock at the gates of his passion!  The war had left havoc.  The physical, the sensual, the violent, the simian—­these instincts, engendering the Day of the Beast, had come to dominate the people he had fought for.  Why not go out and deliberately kill a man, a libertine, a slacker?  He would still be acting on the same principle that imbued him during the war.

His thoughts drifted to Mel Iden.  Strange how he loved her!  Why?  Because she was a lonely soul like himself—­because she was true to her womanhood—­because she had fallen for the same principle for which he had sacrificed all—­because she had been abandoned by family and friends—­because she had become beautiful, strange, mystic, tragic.  Because despite the unnamed child, the scarlet letter upon her breast, she seemed to him infinitely purer than the girl who had jilted him.

Lane now surrendered to the enchantment of emotion embodied in the very name of Mel Iden.  He had long resisted a sweet, melancholy current.  He had driven Mel from his mind by bitter reflection on the conduct of the people who had ostracized her.  Thought of her now, of what he meant to do, of the mounting love he had so strangely come to feel for her, was his only source of happiness.  She would never know his secret love; he could never tell her that.  But it was something to hold to his heart, besides that unquenchable faith in himself, in some unseen genius for far-off good.

The next day Lane, having ascertained where Joshua Iden was employed, betook himself that way just at the noon hour.  Iden, like so many other Middleville citizens, gained a livelihood by working for the rich Swann.  In his best days he had been a master mechanic of the railroad shops; at sixty he was foreman of one of the steel mills.

As it chanced, Iden had finished his noonday meal and was resting in the shade, apart from other laborers there.  Lane remembered him, in spite of the fact that the three years had aged and bowed him, and lined his face.

“Mr. Iden, do you remember me?” asked Lane.  He caught the slight averting of Iden’s eyes from his uniform, and divined how the father of Mel Iden hated soldiers.  But nothing could daunt Lane.

“Yes, Lane, I remember you,” returned Iden.  He returned Lane’s hand-clasp, but not cordially.

Lane had mapped out in his mind this little interview.  Taking off his hat, he carefully lowered himself until his back was propped against the tree, and looked frankly at Iden.

“It’s warm.  And I tire so easily.  The damned Huns cut me to pieces....  Not much like I was when I used to call on Mel!”

Iden lowered his shadowed face.  After a moment he said:  “No, you’re changed, Lane....  I heard you were gassed, too.”

“Oh, everything came my way, Mr. Iden....  And the finish isn’t far off.”

Iden shifted his legs uneasily, then sat more erect, and for the first time really looked at Lane.  It was the glance of a man who had strong aversion to the class Lane represented, but who was fair-minded and just, and not without sympathy.