"You see how much good the brief glimpse which I had last night of the eternal light did me! Before one full day has elapsed, I sound a lower depth in primitive, brutal passion then I ever had before in my life. I am sick at heart when I think how quickly and easily I could forget everything which goes to make up civilization. There was no excuse for it--that's the worst part. I was infinitely more to blame than Judd, even leaving out of consideration the fact that a greater degree of self-restraint and forbearance should reasonably have been expected of me, a city-bred man, than of him, a more primitive son of the hills." Donald placed his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands with a stifled sound, which might have been groan or curse, and very gently Smiles' hand stole up in the darkness and stroked his tumbled hair, until the man's own fumblingly sought and held it close, to find mute comfort in her warm clasp. "Perhaps I understand better than you think the reasons which underlie these most unhappy events," answered the old man slowly. There was no rebuke in his quiet voice. "Although it is true, doctor, that the deeper we get into the heart of primal nature, the closer we get to the heart of nature's God, it is equally true that the nearer we also get to the primal in man. "I cannot help feeling that the city's laws and conventions trammel the spirit in its free exercise of self, which is ill; but yet the inbred realization of those very laws and conventions, and the fear of consequences if they are broken, act as a salutary check on the primitive passions inherited by every one of us from our savage ancestors. "Of course, I know that, in places where men are crowded together, such man-made laws and conventions are wise and necessary; but the life which results is not--cannot be--full and natural as it may be in an isolated place like this, when honest obedience is paid to the still higher laws of God--and it is for _that_ obedience which all of us must strive constantly. "You failed in the test to-day; but, believe me, there are many in these mountains who, lacking all the advantages of training and education which are yours, meet it. Their lives are lived under nature's higher laws in perfect sincerity, and, although they might not conform to the standards of so-called civilization, they are surely purer in God's sight than those of millions who pattern theirs by printed precept." "I reckon," murmured Smiles, "that St. Peter had to put many black marks on three books to-day ... yes, mine too, for I was wickedly angry. It was hate that made me run away from Doctor Mac, and if I hadn't done it, M ... M ... Mike wouldn't have been shot." She leaned her head against Donald's arm, and cried softly.