As one in a vise, I sat for a moment chained by wild conflicting passions, and then—a strange thing happened. A feeling of nakedness, a sense of being stripped of everything like another Job, of being utterly alone in the world fell about me like an atmosphere. I felt deprived of everything, though not bereft. It was an odd feeling, a sort of involuntary renunciation of all that was my life in which yet I calmly acquiesced. I faced and addressed Pendleton almost with tranquillity. Certainly I experienced a strange new dignity that was very soothing, very grateful, as water to the thirsty after battle. "Very well, Jim," I heard myself saying quietly. "Go ahead your own way. That perhaps is best." All that I remember is a gleam of triumph in his eye. No word of all his chunnering and maundering afterwards do I recall. He talked on, smoking, for perhaps four or five minutes and then he left me. By myself I felt at once strangely heavy as a mountain and insubstantial as the shadow thereof. *CHAPTER XVII* Again and again I have been told that I am a fool. But not even my dearest friends have called me mad. Are the gods then really so anxious to destroy me? What have I done to deserve it? This morning, after last night’s interview with Pendleton, I saw Alicia—suddenly saw her as it seemed for the first time. And yet an overwhelming realization flooded me like a tidal wave that through countless ages she and she alone had been inexpressibly dear to me. She, the divine ideal I had been pursuing, catching fitful glimpses of in glades and forests, on mountain tops, in palaces, in fantastic surroundings, amid incredible scenes of a dim and ancient dream-life, more real than any reality—_she_ was Alicia, this child Alicia. And I am more than twice her age! Nothing can come of it but misery and wretchedness for me. By no word or sign dare I convey such a thing to her or to any one else—to no one except these pale pages that receive my poor motley confidences with the only discretion I can trust. She is dearer to me than all the worlds. Yet not only must I remain dumb but I must guard my every word, gesture, thought even, as never before. In the midst of all else this is a catastrophe. Yet it overshadows and overbalances everything. Let me disclose the truth by so much as a sign, and every act and motive of mine becomes abruptly suspect, and I shall stand revealed for the immoral, shameful creature that I suppose I am. I could face that, I believe, if there were any possibility—but there isn’t. I must hide and cover and conquer the feeling by inanition. But how can I, when she is so untellably dear and precious to me? No, no! A thousand times no! I cannot let Pendleton try to inveigle her to leave me. No!