Isn't it queer ?" The young man became conscious of a vague discomfort, and realized dimly that for hours now he had been smothering with words and caresses a something that had striven with him to be heard, a something that instead of dying grew stronger the more utterly this innocent maid yielded to him.

It was as if he had ridden impulse with rough spurs in a fierce desire to distance certain voices, and in the first mad gallop had lost them, but now far back heard them calling again more strongly every moment.

A man's honor, if old, may travel feebly, but its pursuit is persistent.

It was the talk about his people that had raised this damned uneasiness and indecision, he thought.

Why had he ever started it?
"The marvellous part of it all," continued the girl, "is that it will never end.