THE ENGLISH REVIEW

half shut, did not show glazed by the small candlelight. His wife
looked at him. He seemed to be dreaming back, half awake.
Life with its smoky burning gone from him, had left a purity
and a candour like an adolescent's moulded upon his reverie.
His intrinsic beauty was evident now. She had not been mis-
taken in him, as often she had bitterly confessed to herself she
was. The beauty of his youth, of his eighteen years, of the
time when life had settled on him, as in adolescence it settles
on youth, bringing a mission to fulfil and equipment therefor,
this beauty shone almost unstained again. It was this adolescent
"he," the young man looking round to see which way, that
Elizabeth had loved. He had come from the discipleship of
youth, through the Pentecost of adolescence, pledged to keep
with honour his own individuality, to be steadily and un-
quenchably himself, electing his own masters and serving them
till the wages were won. He betrayed himself in his search for
amusement. Let Education teach us to amuse ourselves,
necessity will train us to work. Once out of the pit, there was
nothing to interest this man. He sought the public-house,
where, by paying the price of his own integrity, he found
amusement; destroying the clamours for activity, because he
knew not what form the activities might take. The miner
turned miscreant to himself, easing the ache of dissatisfaction
by destroying the part of him which ached. Little by little
the recreant maimed and destroyed himself.

It was this recreant his wife had hated so bitterly, had fought
against so strenuously. She had strove, all the years of his
falling off, had strove with all her force to save the man she had
known new-bucklered with beauty and strength. In a wild
and bloody passion she fought the recreant. Now this lay
killed, the clean young knight was brought home to her.
Elizabeth bowed her head upon the body and wept.

She put her arms round him, kissed the smooth ripples
below his breasts, bowed her forehead on him in submission.
Faithful to her deeper sense of honour, she uttered no word of
sorrow in her heart. Upright in soul are women, however they
bow the swerving body. She owned the beauty of the blow.

And all the while her heart was bursting with grief and
pity for him. What had he suffered ? What stretch of horror
for this helpless man ! She wept herself almost in agony. She
had not been able to help him. Never again would she be able
to help him. It was grief unutterable to think that now all
was over between them. Even if it were a case of meeting in
the next world, he would not need her there; it would be

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