It took Thyrsis some time to adjust himself to this new point of view. He had thought of his friend as a man who had boldly defied the convention of marriage; and instead of that he was apparently a man cowering under the lash of the world’s undeserved rage. But if so--what an amazing and incredible thing was the mesh of slander and falsehood in which he had been entangled! Section 12. Little by little Thyrsis drew from Darrell the story of his marital experience. Before he had been of age, as a poor student, he had boarded with a woman many years his senior, who had set out to lure him into marrying her. “I don’t believe that she ever loved me one hour,” he said. “She had made up her mind that I was a man of brilliant parts, and that I would have worldly success. To me the thing was like an evil dream--I couldn’t realize it. And I can’t tell you about it now--it was too horrible. She was older than I, and so different--she was more like a man. And for twenty years she held me; I had to stay--I was utterly at her mercy!” The man’s voice fell to a whisper, and he pressed Thyrsis’ hand convulsively; there were tears upon his cheeks. “I could not tell it all to anyone,” he said. “It makes me cry like a child to think of it. I’m only getting over it little by little--realizing how I was tortured. This woman had no interest in me, intellectual or spiritual; she brought up my children to despise me. I would stay upstairs in my study, writing sermons--that was all my life! For twenty years I waded through my own blood!” Darrell paused to get control of himself, and then went on. “One of my parishioners was my present wife’s mother. She was one of the old-time abolitionists, and she was wealthy; and now, in her old age, she saw the new light, and became a Socialist. This, of course, was like gall to her family; they were powers in the state--the railroad people, who control the legislature and run the government. And so their newspapers denounced me, and denounced the university where I taught.