I was not in a mood to discuss the matter further. I was sick at heart and angry,--not so much with Elodia as with the conditions that had made her what she was, a woman perfect in every other respect, but devoid of the one supreme thing,--the sense of virtue. She was now to me simply a splendid ruin, a temple without holiness. I went up to my room and spent the night plunged in the deepest sadness I had ever known. When one is suffering an insupportable agony, he catches at the flimsiest delusions for momentary relief. He says to himself, "My friend is not dead!" "My beloved is not false!" So I tried to cheat myself. I argued, "Why, this is only a matter of education with me, surely; how many women, with finer instincts than mine, have loved and married men of exactly the same stamp as Elodia!" But I put away the thought with a shudder, feeling that it would be a far more dreadful thing to relax my principles and to renounce my faith in woman's purity than to sacrifice my love. The tempter came in another form. Suppose she should repent? But my soul revolted. No, no; Jesus might pardon a Magdalene, but I could not. Elodia was dead; Elodia had never been! That night I buried her; I said I would never look upon her face again. But the morning brought resurrection. How hard a thing it is to destroy love! Chapter 9. JOURNEYING UPWARD. "The old order changeth, giving place to the new, And God fulfils himself in many ways." --TENNYSON. My conversation with Elodia had the effect of crystallizing my nebulous plans about visiting the Caskians into a sudden resolve. I could not remain longer in her presence without pain to myself; and, to tell the truth, I dreaded lest her astounding lack of the moral sense--which should be the foundation stone of woman's character--would eventually dull my own. Men are notoriously weak where women are concerned--the women they worship. As soon as I had communicated with the Caskians and learned that they were still anticipating my coming, with--they were so kind as to say it--the greatest pleasure, I prepared to set forth.