Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/188

 strenuous thought, as did also the features, fined down almost to emaciation. From beneath his strongly marked eyebrows flashed the most penetrating eyes I had ever seen. Hulmar Edial, indeed, was a man to whom intense labor was a necessity as well as a delight, the one refuge from the unavailing remembrance of a happiness irrevocably past.

His case was by no means uncommon. The more precious the treasure, the more grievous its loss: the more intimate the union of hearts, the more bitter the premature separation. The haunting fear of such a separation was the one bitter drop in the comparatively unmingled cup of life in those days. I was the more able to appreciate this fact after a confidential conversation. with Utis not long subsequent to the time of which we are speaking. The conversation had turned upon Hulmar, and the great loss he had sustained. While speakmg of this, the voice of Utis faltered; and, after a pause, he confided to me his own apprehensions.

"You are already aware that our race, though greatly improved in general health and longevity, is barely maintained at its present number. This is in accordance with a well-known physiological law. The average number of children to a marriage is a little above two, but the number of mothers able to boast of more than two living children is scarcely sufficient to compensate for the deficiency in other families. The absence of children in a household being regarded as the greatest of calamities, the want must, in many cases, be supplied by adoption.

"A mother with only two children would never consent to surrender one, except, perhaps, to a childless sister, or