And yet,--he hesitated.

Could he accept the sacrifice this white soul wished to make for

him? Could he aid and abet her in raising up for herself so much

undeserved obloquy? Could he help her to become Anathema maranatha

among her sister women? Even if she felt brave enough to try the

experiment herself for humanity's sake, was it not his duty as a

man to protect her from her own sublime and generous impulses? Is

it not for that in part that nature makes us virile? We must

shield the weaker vessel. He was flattered not a little that this

leader among women should have picked him out for herself among the

ranks of men as her predestined companion in her chosen task of

emancipating her sex. And he was thoroughly sympathetic (as every

good man must needs be) with her aims and her method. Yet, still

he hesitated. Never before could he have conceived such a problem

of the soul, such a moral dilemma possible. It rent heart and

brain at once asunder. Instinctively he felt to himself he would

be doing wrong should he try in any way to check these splendid and

unselfish impulses which led Herminia to offer herself willingly up

as a living sacrifice on behalf of her enslaved sisters everywhere.

Yet the innate feeling of the man, that 'tis his place to protect

and guard the woman, even from her own higher and purer self,

intervened to distract him. He couldn't bear to feel he might be

instrumental in bringing upon his pure Herminia the tortures that

must be in store for her; he couldn't bear to think his name might

be coupled with hers in shameful ways, too base for any man to

contemplate.

And then, intermixed with these higher motives, came others that he

hardly liked to confess to himself where Herminia was concerned,

but which nevertheless would obtrude themselves, will he, nill he,

upon him. What would other people say about such an innocent union

as Herminia contemplated? Not indeed, "What effect would it have

upon his position and prospects?" Alan Merrick's place as a

barrister was fairly well assured, and the Bar is luckily one of

the few professions in lie-loving England where a man need not

grovel at the mercy of the moral judgment of the meanest and

grossest among his fellow-creatures, as is the case with the

Church, with medicine, with the politician, and with the

schoolmaster. But Alan could not help thinking all the same how

people would misinterpret and misunderstand his relations with the

woman he loved, if he modelled them strictly upon Herminia's

wishes. It was hateful, it was horrible to have to con the thing

over, where that faultless soul was concerned, in the vile and

vulgar terms other people would apply to it; but for Herminia's

sake, con it over so he must; and though he shrank from the effort

with a deadly shrinking, he nevertheless faced it. Men at the

clubs would say he had seduced Herminia. Men at the clubs would

lay the whole blame of the episode upon him; and he couldn't bear

to be so blamed for the sake of a woman, to save whom from the

faintest shadow of disgrace or shame he would willingly have died a

thousand times over. For since Herminia had confessed her love to

him yesterday, he had begun to feel how much she was to him. His

admiration and appreciation of her had risen inexpressibly. And

was he now to be condemned for having dragged down to the dust that

angel whose white wings he felt himself unworthy to touch with the

hem of his garment?




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