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Updated: June 20, 2025
For a long time he lay there in a transport of the senses, without thinking. As soon as thought regained dominance over his feelings there came a subtle change in his reaction to this situation. He had forgotten much. He had lived in a dream. He had unconsciously grown well. He had been strangely, unbelievably happy. Why? Mel Iden had nursed him, loved him, inspired him back to health.
Then he stood by while at an outfitter's she inspected coats for Stuppeny, and finally bought one of a fine mulberry colour with brass buttons all down the front. She now returned to the market-place, and sought out two farmers from the Iden district, with whom she made arrangements for the winter keep of her lambs.
She was only a girl seventeen when I left home." "So help me God!" muttered Iden, and he covered his face with his hands. "Say yes, Mr. Iden, and I'll go to Mel this afternoon." "No, let me think.... Lane, if you're not drunk, you're crazy." "Not at all. Why, Mr. Iden, I'm perfectly rational. Why, I'd glory in making that splendid girl a little happier, if it's possible."
The physical, the sensual, the violent, the simian these instincts, engendering the Day of the Beast, had come to dominate the people he had fought for. Why not go out and deliberately kill a man, a libertine, a slacker? He would still be acting on the same principle that imbued him during the war. His thoughts drifted to Mel Iden. Strange how he loved her! Why?
They took him to the Iden home where he was severely ill during March. In April he began to improve, although he did not come to his senses. One day Mr. Iden brought Jacob Lane, an uncle of Lane's, to see him. Lane's uncle had been at odds with the family for many years. There had been a time when he had cared much for his nephew Daren.
Lane had only to look at Blair to feel something elevating in himself, to know beyond all doubt that the goodness, the truth, the progress of man in nature, and of God in his soul, must grow on forever. Mel Iden had been in her home four days when Lane first saw her there. It was a day late in June when the rich, thick, amber light of afternoon seemed to float in the air.
"By God's goodness you have brought about one miracle. Who knows? You might change Mel. For you have brought something great back from the war." "Mrs. Iden, I will persuade her to marry me," said Lane. "And then, Mr. Iden, we must see what is best for her and the boy in the future." "Aye, son. One lesson learned makes other lessons easy.
"Mel Iden ought to be roasted," retorted Helen. "She was always so darned superior. And all the time...." "Helen, don't you say a word against Mel Iden," burst out Margaret, hotly. "She was my dearest friend. She was lovely. Her ruin was a horrible shock. But it wasn't because she was bad.... Mel had some fanatical notion about soldiers giving all going away to be slaughtered.
And now, it seemed, he would be ashamed to go to Mel Iden or Blair Maynard. Such news could not long be kept from them. Middleville was a beehive of gossips. Lane had a moment of blank despair, a feeling of utter, sick, dazed wonder at life and human nature. Then he lifted his head and went on.
Because despite the unnamed child, the scarlet letter upon her breast, she seemed to him infinitely purer than the girl who had jilted him. Lane now surrendered to the enchantment of emotion embodied in the very name of Mel Iden. He had long resisted a sweet, melancholy current. He had driven Mel from his mind by bitter reflection on the conduct of the people who had ostracized her.
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