'Elijah, I do not understand this language. What ought I to do to regain Mehalah's favour?'

'You must go after her. Do you not feel it in every fibre, that you must, you mud-blood? Go after her at once. She is now at home, sitting alone, brooding over the offence, sore at your suffering her to be insulted without making remonstrance. Her wrong will grow into a mountain in her heart unless it be rooted up to-night. Her pride will flame up as her passion dies away, and she will not let you speak to her another tender word. She will hate and despise you. The little crack will split into a wide chasm. I heard her call you a white-livered coward.'

'She did; you need not repeat it. She will be sorry when she is cool.'

'That is just it, George. As soon as passion abates, her generous heart will turn to self-reproach, and she will be angry with herself for what she has done. She will accuse herself with having been violent, with having acted unworthily of her dignity, with having grown in too great a heat about a worthless doll. She will be vexed with herself, ashamed of herself, unable in the twilight of her temper to excuse herself. Perhaps she is now in tears. But this mood will not last. To-morrow her pride will have returned in strength, she will think over her wrongs and harden herself in stubbornness; she will know that the world condemns her, and she will retire into herself in defiance of the world. Look up at the sky. Do you see, there is Charles' Wain, and there is Cassiopæa's Chair. There the Serpent and there the Swan. I can see every figure plain, but your landsman rarely can. So I can see every constellation in the dark heaven of Mehalah's soul, but you cannot. You would be wrecked if you were to sail by it. Now, George, take Glory while she is between two moods, or lose her for ever. Go after her at once, George, ask her forgiveness, blame yourself and your mother, blame that figure-head miss, and she will forgive you frankly, at once. She will fall on your neck and ask your pardon for what she has done.'

'I believe you are right,' said De Witt, musing.

'I know I am. As I have been working in my forge, I have watched the flame on the hearth dance and waver to the clinking of the hammer. There was something in the flame, I know not what, which made it wince or flare, as the blows fell hard or soft. So there are things in Nature respond to each other without your knowing why it is, and in what their sympathy consists. So I know all that passes in Mehalah's mind. I feel my own soul dance and taper to her pulses. If you had not been a fool, George, you would already have been after her. What are you staying for now?'

'My mother; what will she say?'

'Do you care for her more than for Glory? If you think of her now, you lose Glory for ever. Once more I ask you, do you waver? Are you inclined to forsake Mehalah for milk-face?'

'I am not,' said De Witt impatiently; 'why do you go on with this? I have said already that Glory is mine.'

'Unless death you do part.'