And then he would be dumb. What a question to ask him! As if he had the time and the energy to climb to those heights, to speak again that difficult language! Had he not told her a thousand times how much he loved her! and could she not believe it and understand it? “But why should it be so hard to tell me?” she would protest. And he would answer that to him it was a denial of love to explain or to make promises. He was as unchangeable as the laws of nature--he could no more be faithless to her soul than he could to his own. “I want you to take that for granted,” he would say; “to know it as you know that the sun will rise to-morrow morning.” “But, Thyrsis,” she would answer, when he used this metaphor, “don’t people sometimes like to go out and see the sun rise?” Section 5. The summer passed; and Thyrsis found to his dismay that his relentless muse had not yet permitted him to write a word. He had not a sufficient grasp upon his mighty subject--nor for that matter had he freedom to get by himself and wrestle it out. He shrunk from that death-grapple, while they were in this unsettled state. They could not stay in tents through the winter-time; and where were they to go? Thyrsis was consumed with the desire to build a tiny house in these woods. He had roamed the country over, without finding any place that was habitable; and besides, he did not want to pay rent--he wanted a home of his own, however humble. He had meant to build one with the money from “The Hearer of Truth”; but now there came a statement from the publisher, showing that there would be due him on the book a trifle over eleven dollars! He tried a new plan. He wrote out a “scenario” of his projected novel, and sent this to his publisher, to see if he could get a contract in advance. He asked for five hundred dollars--with that he could build the house he wanted, and live for another six months, until the book was done. The publisher wrote him to come to the city, where, after some parleying, he submitted a proposition; he would advance the money and publish the book, paying ten per cent. royalty; but he must also have the option to publish the author’s future writings for ten years upon the same basis. This rather staggered Thyrsis. He was business-man enough by this time to realize that if he ever had a real success he could get fifteen or twenty per cent. upon his future work--there were even some authors who got twenty-five per cent. And moreover, he did not like to tie himself to this publisher, who was of the hard and grasping type. He went home to think it over, and in the end he wrote to Henry Darrell. He set forth the situation, and showed how much money it might mean to him--money which he would otherwise be able to devote to some useful purpose. It all depended upon what Darrell could do in the emergency.