of hands, of body, of mind to learn to kill—­to survive and kill—­and go on to kill....  I’ve seen the marching of thousands of soldiers—­the long strange tramp, tramp, tramp, the beat, beat, beat, the roll of drums, the call of bugles, the boom of cannon in the dark, the lightnings of hell flaring across the midnight skies, the thunder and chaos and torture and death and pestilence and decay—­the hell of war.  It is not sublime.  There is no glory.  The sublimity is in man’s acceptance of war, not for hate or gain, but love.  Love of country, home, family—­love of women—­I fought for women—­for Helen, whom I imagined my ideal, breaking her heart over me on the battlefield.  Not that Helen failed me, but failed the ideal for which I fought!...  My little sister Lorna!  I fought for her, and I fought for a dream that existed only in my heart.  Lorna—­Alas!...  I fought for other women, all women—­and you, Mel Iden.  And in you, in your sacrifice and your strength to endure, I find something healing to my sore heart.  I find my ideal embodied in you.  I find hope and faith for the future embodied in you.  I find—­”

“Oh Daren, you shame me utterly,” she protested, freeing her hands in gesture of entreaty.  “I am outcast.”

“To a false and rotten society, yes—­you are,” he returned.  “But Mel, that society is a mass of maggots.  It is such women as you, such men as Blair, who carry the spirit onward....  So much for that.  I have spoken to try to show you where I hold you.  I do not call your—­your trouble a blunder, or downfall, or dishonor.  I call it a misfortune because—­because—­”

“Because there was not love,” she supplemented, as he halted at fault.  “Yes, that is where I wronged myself, my soul.  I obeyed nature and nature is strong, raw, inevitable.  She seeks only her end, which is concerned with the species.  For nature the individual perishes.  Nature cannot be God.  For God has created a soul in woman.  And through the ages woman has advanced to hold her womanhood sacred.  But ever the primitive lurks in the blood, and the primitive is nature.  Soul and nature are not compatible.  A woman’s soul sanctions only love.  That is the only progress there ever was in life.  Nature and war made me traitor to my soul.”

“Yes, yes, Mel, it’s true—­and cruel, what you say,” returned Lane.  “All the more reason why you should do what I ask.  I am home after the war.  All that was vain is vain.  I forget it when I can.  I have—­not a great while left.  There are a few things even I can do before that time.  One of them—­the biggest to me—­concerns you.  You are in trouble.  You have a boy who can be spared much unhappiness in life.  If you were married—­if the boy had my name—­how different the future!  Perhaps there can be some measure of happiness for you.  For him there is every hope.  You will leave Middleville.  You will go far away somewhere.  You are young.  You have a good education.  You can teach school, or help your parents while the boy is growing up.  Time is kind.  You will forget....  Marry me, Mel, for his sake.”