"Oh, my God, is it my fault ?" He said to himself that if he had not yielded to the universal law and longing of his kind for a home and a family, it might have been better.

He asked himself that question which will never be answered with a surety of correctness, whether the advancement of the individual to his furthest compass is more to the glory of life than the blind following out of the laws of existence and the bringing others into the everlasting problem of advance.

Then he thought of Ellen, and a great warmth of conviction came over the loving heart of the man; all his self-contempt vanished.

He had her, this child who was above pearls and rubies, he had her, and in her the furthest reach of himself and progression of himself to greater distances than he could ever have accomplished in any other way, and it was a double progress, since it was not only for him, but also for the woman he had married.

A great wave of love for Fanny came over him.