At times all the evil in her nature was dominant. She dreaded hearing Quintard speak the word which would thrust her face to face with her future; but the temptation was strong to see the lightning flash in his eyes, to shake his silence as a rock shakes above the quivering earth. And Quintard kept his control because he saw that she was trying to tempt him, and he determined that he would not yield an inch until he was ready. * * * * * She made up her mind to go away from all memory of Cryder and live on some Mediterranean island with Quintard. She was not fit to be any man’s wife, and life could never be what it might have been; but at least she would have him, and she could not live without him. There were softer moments, when she felt poignant regret for the mistake of her past, when she had brief, fleeting longings for a higher life of duty, and of a love that was something more than intellectual companionship and possession. Quintard’s book came out and aroused a hot dispute. He was accused of coarseness and immorality on the one side, and granted originality and vigor on the other. The ultra-conservative faction refused him a place in American literature. The radical and advanced wing said that American literature had some blood in its veins at last. Hermia took all the papers, and a day seldom passed that Quintard’s name, either in execration or commendation, did not meet her eyes. The derogatory articles cut her to the quick or aroused her to fury; and the adulation he received delighted her as keenly as if offered to herself. He was with her in his periods of elation and depression, and it was at such times that the better part of her nature was stirred. He needed her. She could give him that help and comfort and sympathy without which his life would be barren. She knew that under the hard, outer crust of her nature lay the stunted germs of self-abnegation and sacrifice, and there were moments when she longed with all the ardor of her quickening soul to give her life to this man’s happiness and good. Then the mood would pass, and she would look back upon it with impatience. * * * * * CHAPTER XXXIV. LIFE FROM DEATH. Hermia was in bed one morning when her maid brought her the papers. She opened one, then sat suddenly erect, and the paper shook in her hands. She read the headlines through twice—details were needless. Then she dropped the paper and fell back on the pillows. A train had gone over an embankment in the South, and Ogden Cryder’s name was in the list of dead.