“Humph,” said the girl, “it’s all right.” “No,” said Thyrsis, “it’s all wrong. It’s dreadful--it’s horrible. I don’t know what I should have done---” “Well, you better not do it any more, that’s all,” said she. “I’m sure you needn’t worry about me--I’ll take care of myself.” Thyrsis looked at her again; she was no longer beautiful. Her face was coarse, and her anger did not make it any better. His humility made no impression. “It is so wrong---” he began; but she interrupted him. “Preaching won’t help it any,” she said. “I don’t want to hear it. Good-bye.” So she turned and walked away; and Thyrsis stood there, white, and shuddering, until at last he started and strode off. Clear through the town he went, and out into the black country beyond, seeing nothing, caring about nothing. He flung himself down by the roadside, and lay there moaning for hours: “My God, my God, what shall I do?” Section 12. It was nearly morning when he came back and crept upstairs to his room; and here he sat by the bedside, gazing at the haggard face in the glass. At such times as this he discovered a something in his features that filled him with shuddering; he discovered it in his words, and in the very tone of his voice--the sins of the fathers were being visited upon the children! What an old, old story it was to him--this anguish and remorse! These ecstasies of resolution that vanished like a cloud-wrack--these protestations and noble sentiments that counted for naught in conduct! And his was to be the whole heritage of impotence and futility; he, too, was to struggle and agonize--and to finish with his foot in the trap! This idea was like a white-hot goad to him. After such an experience there would be several months of toil and penance, and of savage self-immolation. It was hard to punish a man who had so little; but Thyrsis managed to find ways. For several months at a time he would go without those kinds of food that he liked; and instead of going to bed at one o’clock he would read the New Testament in Greek for an hour. He would leap out of bed in the morning and plunge into cold water; and at night, when he felt a longing upon him, he would go out and run for hours. He took to keeping diaries and writing exhortations to himself. Because he could no longer use the theological prayers he had been taught, he fashioned new invocations for himself: prayers to the unknown sources of his vision, to the new powers of his own soul--“the undiscovered gods,” as he called them. Above all he prayed to his vision of the maiden who waited the issue of this battle, and held the crown of victory in her keeping-- “Somewhere beneath the sun, Those quivering heart-strings prove it, Somewhere there must be one Made for this soul to love it-- Some one whom I could court With no great change of manner, Still holding reason’s fort, While waving fancy’s banner!”