132 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



if we are not told the color of her eyes. She is a daughter of France, 

 born in the sun's lap, transferred to the drear fenland at her father's 

 death and to the guardianship of the benumbing Puritan, who after 

 wedding her without wooing "locks her spirit up and keeps the key." 

 Her misery is faithful to the loathed yoke until the appearance of 

 Lisle. Even after his coming she is willing to struggle; but the 

 ruthless husband, confusing a diligent wife and quiet house with 

 unnatural sacrifice and self-starvation, drives her to her fate. The 

 very hour of surrender is *'a deep inheriting, and as the solemn coming 

 to a kingdom." In her new abode, this time a home, she is the spirit 

 of motherhood. All that "wanders in her and is wild," having 

 broken in one wave on Lisle, has been gathered up with all else that 

 is in her to be poured out in love for her child and the father of her 

 child. With the boy's taking off comes rebellion against the causeless 

 theft and a prayer for heaven's ire sooner than heaven's indifference. 

 This is followed by the thought that she is being punished for having 

 rushed into Lisle's arms in headlong passion. Finally her husband 

 confesses his crime, and the wracked heart rebels against his sin and 

 her contagion; the body that wooed him to murder conceived her 

 boy, adjudged to death before his birth. Her agony begets a gradual 

 calm, the calm of hopelessness: "0 1 am stone to human life hence- 

 forth." In this mood she notes in her husband the eyes that shone 

 from her dead boy's face, and Lisle grasps the opportunity to sug- 

 gest that by the loss of their beloved they have paid the penalty of 

 fleshly sin; that now may begin a marriage everlasting; whose 

 sacrament shall be their deep and mutual wound, whose witnesses 

 the shadowy throngs. Then the same woman we came to know in 

 the first act, craving light and love, clasps the plea he offers and falls 

 on the heart of the man who five years ago had led her from gloom to 

 sunshine. But in the dreary fenland we met her and in a sort of 

 spiritual fenland we bid her farewell; for we know that ever in her 

 heart will be the cry: "I want the little hands and feet of him." 

 About her in the future will flit irrecoverable dreams, with memory 

 and repentance, never deep, confident happiness again. That the 

 character of Lisle is adequately drawn few would maintain; but 



