The fast vestibuled train, forty minutes late, swung northward at a speed that kept the car in a quiver. There were few passengers, asleep in their berths, and Mr. Herriott had secured the drawing-room. It was new, luxurious in appointments, and to the end of the brass rod supporting the lamp in the centre he had fastened a great sheaf of white carnations, sent by Mrs. Whitfield. Closing the sliding door that opened into the sleeper, he sat down beside the figure clad in a dark-blue cloth suit.

"I am so insanely happy I dare not pinch or shake myself, lest I should wake and find it only a heavenly dream."

He took one of her remarkably beautiful hands, which he had always admired, and where he had placed a broad, heavy band of gold four hours before. Spreading the cold fingers on his warm palm, he lifted them against his cheek, brushed them with his mustache.

"Lovely little snowflakes; how long I have coveted their touch! And now they are absolutely my very own. Mine forever."

She had been leaning back, but straightened, braced herself, and her breathing was deep and rapid.

"Mr. Noel, do you really love me above everything else?"

He laughed so heartily that she saw the glitter of his fine teeth.

"Do I love you above everything else? You elusive witch! If you will withdraw the embargo of your request—'not yet, please'—I can soon convince you."

His handsome face, radiantly happy, bent close to hers, but she shrank away from him.

"I am your wife now, but——"

She paused, with a strained look in her eyes.

"Yes; my own precious wife at last, thank God!"

"There is one, only one proof that will convince me I am really first in your heart. Give me at once the box of papers that incriminate my father."

He dropped her hand and rose.

"It is hard, indeed, when a man must refuse the first request of his bride; but, my darling, I cannot dishonor myself. Such baseness would not prove my love; and it would inevitably arouse your contempt."

She had risen, and as they faced each other under the lamp the swaying carnations almost touched his glossy black head.

Lifting her tightly locked hands in entreaty, her voice vibrated like a lute string rudely swept.

"Don't, oh, don't break my heart! Help me to shield my father from shame, and I will bless you as long as I live. I am so wretched—the world is going to pieces—and I am clinging to you as the one rock of safety, the sole refuge that will not fail me. If you ever really loved me, oh, Mr. Noel, have mercy on me now!"

His face hardened, and, unwilling to trust his voice, he shook his head. She staggered as if from a blow, but after a moment her cheeks flamed, and banked fires glowed in her dilated eyes.

"Eglah, when did your father have the cruelty to tell you about the papers in my possession?"

"He never told me. He does not suspect I know, and he must not find out I am aware of their existence; because I could not bear that such an additional sorrow should overtake him. My father! It is your will and purpose to ruin him in his old age?"

"Only Judge Kent and I were cognizant of the existence of that box. May I ask how you obtained your information?"

"I was in his bedroom next to the library when you and father came in. The door was open, and through the thin curtain I heard every word—every cruel, horrible word, that cut my heart like a dagger. At first, when you spoke of not wishing me to know, I felt I had no right to listen, but some things had long perplexed me, things that father would not explain, and I determined to make an end of mysteries."

All tenderness had vanished from his set face, and his blue-grey eyes watched her much as a judge might a witness on the stand.

The train had entered a deep, rocky cut, and the clattering roar sounded a verbal truce. When it rushed through a meadow, Mr. Herriott put his hands behind him.

"I must have all the truth now. If you had not overheard that conversation, you would not have waited for and intercepted me in the grove?"

"Certainly not. I wished to see you at once, and before I met father."

"Your terrible distress and agitation were solely on his account, and not because of my approaching journey?"

"Yes, for father's safety. I was grieved to hear you were going so far away, but, Mr. Noel, father is my all. When I learned of the exposure threatening him I think I must have gone mad, or I should not have made the ghastly mistake of believing you loved me well enough to help me save him, and——"

She paused, silenced by the flash in his eyes, the white fury of his face.

"You proposed our marriage solely to find an opportunity for getting possession of the papers?"

"Yes, that was my object. I thought you would not deny the prayer of your wife."

"You have come to my arms with no more love in your heart than when you refused me years ago?"

"Yes. In a way I have always been attached to you; I honor, and admire, and trust you fully, and of all men I hold you first—but love! God help me! Perhaps in time I may learn."

"You considered yourself the price of the papers, and felt assured I could not refuse to sell? Any man who held them could own you body and soul! Any clodhopper, lout, any libertine, any moral leper could own you for life, in exchange for the papers! You, my white-souled, proud, sensitive, ideal woman, for sale! For sale!"

The red spots in her cheeks deepened, and a defiant ring steadied her trembling voice.

"As you are the only person who could yield me what I sought, you are the one possible purchaser. But there was an additional reason for my becoming your wife. My grandmother's will requires the estate she gave me kept in the hands of a trustee until I am thirty, unless I marry. In that event I come into immediate unrestricted possession, and I thought if you denied my prayer I would be financially able to buy the papers when you delivered them in my presence. That is the one hope that stands now between me and despair—a hope made possible by and based on my marriage. There was no other door of escape from ruin, and so I sold myself to the one man whom I have always honored and trusted—who I believed would be patient with me. Yes, I sold myself. That you would be deeply aggrieved I knew, because I intended you should learn all the truth to-night. The horror, the hot shame of the last few hours you will never, never understand."

"There was, however, solace for you in the possibility that Polar perils might speedily cancel your matrimonial bonds? At least that is one hope I can share with you."

Swinging around a sharp curve, the car lurched violently, and she staggered. He caught her arm and led her to the seat, where she leaned her head against the panel and shut her eyes. Singularly beautiful was the proud face wearing the pathetic seal of mental suffering, but, as he looked down at her, no pity softened the gleam in his eyes, and his hands clinched in his struggle for self-control.

"To-night I have learned how a man feels when an angel he worshipped from afar stooped from her heights, led him up, up to the open gate of heaven, and, just as he was entering, the same angelic hand dropped him into hell. When I had abandoned all hope of winning you, the suddenness of your surrender made my head reel. I was amazed; but the possibility that you deliberately planned to deceive me no more occurred to me than would an insult to my dead mother. For me you have embodied all that I hold pure, lofty, refined, admirable in womanhood. I was fastidious, but you filled my ideal, and I trusted you almost as I trust my God. You have wronged me doubly—in the loss of yourself, but far worse in the destruction of my belief in the incorruptibility of some women; sooner or later all are for sale.

"If I had sailed away before seeing you at Y—— I should have carried an unsullied, a perfect, sacred memory of you to light the long Arctic night. God knows I would sooner have died there than realize you cruelly, deliberately deceived me. You thought you were buying the papers; but, as they will not be delivered, the trade is off. You cannot get possession of what you purchased, and the price paid I here return to you. You have no papers, and I have no wife. Without value received on your part, I have no right to you, and we stand now just as we did before that marriage ceremony, which has proved a mere commercial mockery. I abhor shams—above all things sham marriage. All or none. Only very strong, deep, tender love justifies a woman in giving herself away. Otherwise the relation degrades her; she is little better than an odalisque; and such I decline to see you. For me you have no love—never will have—and as regards my own wishes, your duplicity has effectually slain what once warmed my heart. After a few days, relief for both of us will come in separation. If I never return you will escape much annoyance. When two years elapse, the divorce court cannot refuse to give you freedom from nominal bonds, and then you will soon forget that you were ever—even in name—my wife."

She had grown ghastly pale, and her lips fluttered. In the brief silence a sick child's fretful cry rolled through the adjoining sleeper, then the train thundered into a tunnel.

"Mr. Herriott, I am so utterly miserable cruel words, even from you, no longer have power to wound me. I—" She laughed nervously, and sat upright.

"My worse than useless appeal to your mercy reminds me of a picture of the Deluge I once saw, when I was a happy child. A drowning woman clung to the edge of an open window in the ark, begging succor, and Noah leaned out and pried off her grasping hands, smiting her back into hungry waves. I shall obey your wishes, Mr. Herriott, in all but one step you have suggested. I do not believe in the validity of divorces. Vows made to God can never be cancelled by civil processes. A consecrated minister is not a mere notary public to attest signatures to a deed. My marriage is forever sacred as my baptism; my covenant in His sight, in His holy name, stands always—'till death us do part.' You shall be as free as you wish. You need never see me again, but so long as I live I intend to hold myself your wife."

"Will you do me the kindness to hand me your ring?"

She drew it from her finger and held it toward him. He turned it slowly, smiling bitterly.

"You have not seen the inscription. 'Till death us do part.' The sight of it must be an unpleasant reminder, and I hope and ask that you will never wear it. As a worthless symbol of what no longer exists, allow me to throw it away."

"Just as you please; only remember you have no right to do so, it is mine. If it were cast into the ocean, I should never cease to feel its sacred clasp on my finger."

He laid it on the seat beside her, and she replaced it on her hand. He looked at his watch.

"It will soon be daylight. I am going into the smoking car. Perhaps you can rest. Shall I send the porter?"

"No. I could not sleep."

He went out, closing the door carefully.

With a smothered groan she sank back, and beat her palms against each other. Humiliated, sorely wounded, yet indignant—almost hopeless, but defiant—she stubbornly refused to despair until she had exhausted every means at her command.

After a while she knelt down and prayed God's help in her mission to save her father. She never knew that the door had glided noiselessly half way in its groove and that Mr. Herriott stood there to ask if she needed anything. He saw the figure bowed in prayer, and stole away as softly as he came. The strain was telling upon her quivering nerves. Hysterical aching in her throat, parched and dry, was almost intolerable, and the swaying carnations so burdened the air that when she rose her head swam.

After an hour she struggled to her feet. If she had some water it might cool her throat. From her satchel she took a cup, opened the door, and, supporting herself by one hand on the wall of the car, she walked down the narrow passage, where she knew the water-tank stood near the porter's seat. Before she reached it she saw Mr. Herriott leaning sideways against the glass door opening on the platform. Just then the brakeman raised his lantern, and the flash showed a hopelessly sad face sternly set under the close-fitting travelling cap. As she turned back, he saw her and advanced.

"What do you wish?"

She held out the cup.

"Some water, please."

She reeled, clutched at the wall, and for an instant everything spun round. He placed her in the porter's folding chair, and when he held the cup to her mouth saw that her teeth chattered. She drank spasmodically, and a long, shuddering sigh drifted across her white lips.

"You must lie down and rest. The porter will arrange your berth."

She shook her head and rose.

"You cannot walk alone; lean on me."

"Yes, I can help myself now. I was thirsty and dizzy."

She drew back, but he put his arm around her, holding her firmly against him, and placed her on the seat in the drawing-room. She pointed to the carnations.

"The perfume is overpowering. I can't reach them. Please take them out."

Lifting an arm he snapped the string.

"Like every other souvenir and symbol of to-night, they are simply sickening."

Raising the window he threw the flowers into a river across which the locomotive was cautiously feeling its way. He opened his own satchel, leaning against hers on the opposite seat, took out a silver flask, and poured some ruby, aromatic liquid into the cup.

"You are sadly spent; take this."

"No, I do not need anything more."

"You must. It is merely a mild cocktail."

"No, Mr. Herriott, I prefer not."

"A few hours ago did you swear to obey me? Drink it."

She hid her face in her hands and shivered.

"Eglah, try to control yourself."

"Please don't take any trouble on my account; just leave me alone with my torturing forebodings. No one but God can help me now. The sight of me is painful to you, and I shrink from annoying you. Mr. Herriott, please leave me to myself."

He sat down beside her, the cup in his hand.

"To-night you have made me suffer more than you will ever understand—you have hurt me beyond all possibility of healing—and, perhaps, in the terribly sudden overthrow of beautiful hopes you had called into existence, I may have seemed harsh. If so, you must pardon any desperate words my torture wrung from me. Poor child, you have sorrows enough without any additions from my hand. I cannot trust myself to talk to you; my temper is sometimes beyond control, and you have bruised my heart so sorely I am not sure of self-command. Poor little girl! Do me the favor to drink this, because I ask it."

He held the cup to her lips and she drank. He took a pillow from the opposite seat and put it behind her head.

"If you need anything you have only to open the door and I shall come."

"Mr. Herriott, there is but one thing I shall ever ask you to do for me. The ring you placed on my finger I took off at your request. Here it is. With your own hand put it back where it belongs, and it will be there when I die."

She held out her hand with the ring in her palm. He looked at her intently, and his lips tightened.

"Repeat a mockery? A shameful farce!"

He lifted the glittering circle, tossed it up twice, struggling with the impulse to hurl it through the window, then suddenly slipped it on her finger, dropped her hand, and, picking up his satchel, left her.

Would the night never end? If Duncan Keith refused to sell? She thought of quiet, lovely olive-clad plains in Sicily, with pergolas cool in green shadows of vines, where they might retreat from disgraceful publicity. Mr. Herriott scorned, repudiated her, and henceforth she could devote herself entirely to tender care of her father. Ambition and hope were dead, but was there any anÆsthetic to still the burning stings of memory? She went to the opposite seat and rested her head against the open window. A thin, sallow, fading old moon hung like a spectre in the sky where the morning star lighted the way for the coming new day, and the dew-sprinkled air swept in, spiced with waves of aroma from a blooming vineyard.

Hamlets, meadows, fields, bridges, the looming shadow of a wooded mountain fled past as the train rocked, hummed, and flew on. Looking up at the quiet heavens, Eglah lifted her hands and heart in passionate appeal.

"Dear God, have mercy upon us! If I did wrong, forgive my sin. Help me now to save my poor unfortunate father, and I will strive to be a better Christian all the remainder of my days."

At eight o'clock a waiter brought her breakfast. Later, when Mr. Herriott came in, it was evident he had mastered himself; the fury of white heat had chilled to cold steel. He was very pale, and an unusual rigidity locked his features.

"You must be very tired of this close place, and I am glad we shall change cars. It is a fine day, and the scenery along the route will interest you. Here is our train. Give me your wrap and satchel."

The change was into a parlor car with fresh, linen-covered revolving chairs, and wide windows framing lovely spring pastorals—sheep on a green hillside, cattle knee deep in rock-bedded crystal streams, and everywhere the busy bird world nest building.

Eglah drew a deep breath of relief, and, as Mr. Herriott pushed a hassock under her feet, she looked up at him.

"Thank you. Will you be so kind as to tell me when we shall reach the place where your ward lives?"

"I think the train has about made up lost time, and we are due at Woodbury at half-past six. It is not on the trunk line, and we take a narrow gauge just beyond Carville."

Both wound their watches, and then, liberally supplied with magazines and papers, settled comfortably in adjoining seats. She was the only woman in the car, and a dozen men were scattered about, a few playing cards, some dozing, others absorbed in newspapers.

Mr. Herriott sat in front of his companion, his chair turned half around and toward the window. After a time he took from his satchel a folded chart and note-book. Spreading the former across his knees, he appeared oblivious of all but the lines and figures, yet the angles in his bronze face did not soften. Eglah had taken off her hat, hoping to ease the teasing pain in her temples. She rested her head against the back of the chair, and held up an open magazine, but no page was turned, and as she laid it in her lap she shut her eyes.

Her thoughts drifted to a small villa near Messina which Judge Kent had expressed a wish to occupy because he chanced to see it in a rosy mantle of almond blossoms. Mr. Whitfield would attend to estate matters, and Boynton could be trusted to manage the plantations, though they were miles apart. She could do as she pleased now with her money, and if she failed in her mission to Woodbury she would ask her father to take her abroad at once, until Mr. Herriott returned. During that time public discussion of "Ely Twiggs" would end, and probably she need never come back to America. Mr. Herriott evidently wished her out of his life, forever out of his sight, and certainly he should be gratified. Her father could not suspect her reason for going to Europe; he knew how to keep newspapers from her, and as he did not dream she knew the dreadful truth, they might resume the dear old life. So profound was her revery that she had unconsciously opened her eyes, and they looked out, seeing, not the farms and forests gliding by the window, but the sapphire sky, the purple sea, the snow of lemon groves, the red glow of oleander-walled gardens, and the silvery grey-green olive orchards where she might hide her father from shame, herself from the withering scorn of Mr. Herriott's cruel eyes.

Glancing at her over the top of the lifted chart, his attention was arrested by the intense abstraction in which she was plunged. Her extreme pallor was relieved only by vivid color in her delicately curved lips, and under the eyes bluish circles told something of her suffering. He thought of the haunting, wonderful eyes of Urd, and bit his lips as he watched her; so pathetically hopeless, yet unwaveringly proud was the pure face he had loved long and passionately.

The door behind them opened, and a naval officer entered, carrying in his arms a crying child about six months old. The bundle of muslin and lace squirmed and struggled as the man strove to pacify it by beating a tattoo on the window, dangling his watch close to the baby's eyes, and bouncing it up and down. He walked about, sat down, laid the infant face downward across his knees, trotted it, patted it, but with no quieting success, and, when the engine blew long and loud for a bridge crossing, the frightened child screamed distressingly.

The officer rose.

"I am sorry to annoy the passengers, but the nurse has been taken so ill she cannot hold her head up, and as the boy cries to go to her I was obliged to bring him in here. He never saw me until last night. I was on a cruise when his poor mother died."

Once more he essayed to whistle, and swayed to and fro with a rocking motion, but finally desperate, he turned to a young man in a neighboring chair, who was smiling over a cartoon in "Puck."

"Sir, would you do me the great kindness to hold him just a moment, while I get something from his nurse?"

"All right, I will try; but I happen to be a bachelor, and I never held a baby in my life. Come on, little man. Some day you surely will make a star screamer in opera. Now for it, sonny."

He held out his arms, but, as the father attempted to transfer the boy, the sight of another strange face increased his terror; the little hands grasped the officer's beard, and the baby shrieked in protest.

Eglah rose and crossed the car.

"He is accustomed to women; perhaps I can quiet him. Will you allow me to try?"

"O, thank you, madam!"

She took one little hand, caressed it, toyed with the fingers, and cooed as only women can. After a moment the child ceased crying, and when very gently she took it and laid it up against her shoulder the little creature nestled close to her. His suspicion, however, was not entirely allayed. Suddenly he lifted his head, stared curiously into her face, and when she laid her cheek on his, wet with tears, he seemed reassured and clung to her, his lips touching her throat.

The young man leaned over and whispered to a friend in the chair before him.

"He shows good taste in picking his nurse. Is not she a beauty? I have been watching that handsome couple, and things are not serene in their camp. I was near him in the smoker, and his face looked like a brownstone statue with live wild-cat eyes."

Eglah walked slowly up and down the aisle, humming low and very softly KÜcken's "Schlummerlied." Now and then the child sobbed faintly.

The officer came back with a bottle of milk, but, as he hurried forward, Eglah shook her head. After a little while the exhausted baby slept soundly.

"Madam, I cannot thank you sufficiently for your goodness. I will relieve you now, and I trust the passengers will excuse the annoyance."

"Let me keep him a while; he still sobs now and then, and if moved might wake. A good nap will quiet his nerves."

"It is too great a tax on you, madam."

"When I am tired, I shall bring him to you."

"In a half hour we get home, and since you are so very kind, I will help the nurse arrange luggage for our station."

Eglah went back to her own chair, and holding the little creature with her right arm softly patted him with her left hand. At every motion the wedding ring flashed like a dancing demon in Mr. Herriott's watching eyes.

"Poor little chap. Did you mesmerize him?"

"I think there is telepathy in great trouble. He feels intuitively that some one else is suffering torture, and 'a fellow feeling' drew him to me."

She avoided looking at him, and her eyes followed the evolutions of a flock of white geese holding regatta in a pond close to the railway track.

After some moments, she cautiously and tenderly laid her muslin-clad burden in her lap, and smoothed out the long lace-ruffled robe. With a start one little hand was thrown up, but she caught and held it. He was a handsome boy, and when she untied the lace cap, too tight at his throat, his fluffy yellow locks enhanced his beauty.

The sight of the baby fingers clinging to the hand where the gold band shone renewed the struggle Mr. Herriott was trying to crush.

Leaning toward her, he said:

"Last night, at your request, I stifled my repugnance, and did what I deeply regret. To-day I must ask you for the only favor you can ever grant me. Give me back my ring."

There was an angry pant in his voice that made the words a demand rather than request.

"Mr. Herriott, I am sorry to refuse any wish of yours; but I cannot."

"I want it."

She looked steadily at him.

"So do I. When I die it will be where you placed it; but in the coffin human covenants end, and I will order it sent to you by those who lay me in the grave. My ring is the badge of my loyalty—not yours. You are as free as you wish to be, but when I meet my God He will know I kept my marriage vows—always."

"And the supreme vow was to love me!"

From the fury in his eyes she did not flinch.

"Yes, I intended to keep all. I thought I might learn to love you; and that you would be patient with me. I wanted to love you, and, as God hears me, I meant to spend my life trying to love you."

Unable to restrain words he was unwilling to utter, he sprang up and took refuge on the front platform.

A prolonged whistle of the engine announced the next stop, and the baby awoke with a startled cry, just as his father entered, followed by the nurse, a middle-aged woman who looked too ill to stand. Eglah rose and laid the child in her arms.

"Madam, I am deeply grateful for your courtesy and goodness. I intended handing my card to your husband. Permit me to lay it on his chair."

"I was glad to have your pretty boy. It was a welcome incident in a very dreary day. Good morning, sir."

Mr. Herriott did not return until the second call for luncheon sounded through the train. He took her hat from the brass hook and held it toward her.

"I dare say you are sufficiently weary to welcome luncheon."

"Thank you, but I want absolutely nothing. I hope you will go without me."

He went out, but not to the dining car.

An hour later, when he came back, she had crossed the aisle to a vacant chair, raised the window, and, with an arm on the broad sill, rested her head there. She did not notice his entrance, and resuming his seat he opened a magazine.

Above the line of brass lattice that held packages, hats, and umbrellas ran a panel of mirrors, and in the section over his head was reflected the face and figure directly opposite. For the next hour he held the magazine open, but his eyes never left the mirror. Twice she looked at her watch without raising her head, and from the tense, strained fixedness of her features he knew she was nerving herself for the ordeal at Woodbury; the final effort in her father's behalf, which he felt assured would prove futile. Conflicting emotions shook him, but nothing availed to abate the rage of his disappointment.

The train slowed at the entrance to a large town, and as the station platform filled with curious faces peering into the car windows, Eglah went back to her own seat.

A moment later the door was thrown open, and a boy wearing the uniform of the telegraph company shouted:

"Is Mr. Noel Herriott aboard? Message for Mr. Noel Herriott!"

"I am Mr. Herriott."

He went forward, signed his name in the receipt-book, and opened the envelope. He stood with his back to Eglah, and remained so motionless that she was seized by an apprehension some evil had overtaken her father. Just as she rose he turned and approached her.

"Has anything happened to father?

"This is not from the South. It does not refer to him. We may have to stop here. Keep your seat till I ascertain positively."

Very soon he returned, followed by a porter, who promptly collected satchels and magazines.

"I find I must wait here until two o'clock in the morning."

"Why delay reaching Woodbury? I beg of you let us hasten on."

"There are reasons necessitating it that will be explained later."

She had drawn back, but he took her arm.

"The train will move in a moment, and unless you wish to go on alone, we must be quick."

He assisted her into an omnibus, where several passengers waited, and they were driven to a hotel. Mr. Herriott ordered two rooms, and at the door of one said:

"I must see that the trunks are brought at once. I need mine."

Throwing aside her hat, Eglah began to pace the floor. His countenance had undergone a marked change—subtle, inexplicable—and an indefinable dread caught her heart as in a vise. It seemed to her that an hour passed before he tapped at the door, and she could scarcely articulate,

"Come in."

With a square package sealed in brown paper under one arm, Mr. Herriott entered, closed the door, and deposited the bundle on a small table. From his vest pocket he drew the folded telegram and gave it to her.

"Woodbury, 3 P.M.

"Duncan Keith died two days ago. Wired you at New York Club. Everything attended to here. Will meet you at Carville at 8 P.M.

"Herman Martin."

Her wide, terrified eyes gazed into his.

"What does it mean for me—now?"

"It means that probably some guilty bank officials will go 'unwhipped of justice.' Duncan's father had no relatives in America. He was a poor stowaway lad from England, and since the grandmother's death his son, Duncan, had only his mother's sister, Mrs. Martin. I could not hear from Duncan, to whom I wrote twice last week, and this telegram is an answer to one I sent Martin, telling him I could make only a very brief stop at Woodbury to-night. I have done my duty. I have kept my word. The prosecution of the guilty does not devolve on me, and Martin will never consent to undertake a suit for libel. It would involve money which he does not possess, and responsibility he will not dare to assume. Your father's letters, and the vouchers for large sums of money sent to 'Ely Twiggs,' are in a separate envelope. I shall burn them now, before I deliver the box to Martin."

She sprang forward, her hands on his shoulders, her lips quivering like rose-leaves in a gale.

"Do you mean it? Will you save my father?"

He took her wrists and held her away from him.

"Death saves him; certainly not I."

"No more sorrow can ever come to him?"

"Not from this box; and none through me."

The revulsion overwhelmed her. She sank back, and when he caught her and put his ear to her mouth he could not hear her breathe. He lifted and laid her upon a sofa, and stood looking down at her. So pure and white, so helpless, so beautiful! Legally his wife, but never to be his.

Dipping a towel in water he bathed her face, sprinkled it. The icy hands he chafed in his broad, warm palms, and as his fingers touched the wedding ring he ground his teeth. When her breathing grew stronger, he rose, relinquished her hands, and after a moment she opened her eyes.

"I thought you college-bred girls too well trained to faint."

She sat up, half dazed, and the water dripped from her hair.

"I never fainted before; something smothered me, and everything turned black. Mr. Herriott!"

He had gone to the table, but turned, and looked at her over his shoulder.

"Mr. Herriott, did not you say father was safe from shame and sorrow?"

"In a few moments he will be."

He opened the tin box, selected a small bundle of papers in an envelope marked "Ely Twiggs," and drew some matches from his case. In the grate he burned them one by one, then relocked and tied up the box.

"Eglah, what a pity Iphigenia did not know favorable winds were already blowing at Aulis before she yielded herself to her father's sacrificing hands! Poor Duncan had been dead twenty-four hours when the bishop performed that nuptial farce. If Martin's telegram had been forwarded, you would now be happy at home. I find it necessary to change my plans somewhat. I can spend but a single day at home, and, instead of going directly thence to Boston, shall make a few hours' stay in New York to see my lawyers."

"To alter your will? You need not. I have more than I require, and if I were a pauper I should never accept a cent from you. There is only one thing you can ever give me, and that I must want as long as I live."

He was walking slowly up and down the floor, his hands behind him, and paused beside the sofa.

"What is it?"

She pushed back the damp rings of hair, and lifted to his, pleading eyes pathetically sad.

"Your confidence—your old faith in me."

"Confidence! It lies with love in a grave so deep there can be no resurrection. The world is full of women—lovely, luscious women. Of fair flesh there is for most men no lack; but I wanted, I hungered, I longed for only one pair of dimpled arms folded about my neck, one woman's divinely tender eyes answering all the love in mine, one pair of proud, pure, sensitive, beautiful lips seeking and clinging to mine. Voluntarily you gave yourself to me—your precious self—and when bewildered with happiness I caught you to my heart, you stabbed me. I was mole blind, but sharp clipping has rid me of my cataracts. Let us make an end of this dismal farce. All my life I have fought my infernal temper, and now it has me by the throat. It will take an Arctic winter to cool the hot fury that possesses me; and because I must not speak harshly to you, I wish to ask if you will allow me to leave you here? I can telegraph your father to come at once."

For a moment wounded pride stifled her; she shrank as from a blow, and red signals swung back into her pale cheeks.

"As you please, Mr. Herriott. It is more painfully embarrassing for me to force my presence upon you than for you to endure the sight of me for a few hours longer. If you prefer to leave me here instead of at the place selected and designated before I left home, of course I shall submit. We have not many friends, and father's enemies will gossip over the fact that I was sent home before you sailed from Boston. This, however, is a minor matter in comparison with the fear that the change you suggest might lead father to suspect I had learned the object of your visit to Y——. Life will be unendurable to me if he finds out that I know the contents of that box. I would rather die than have him believe all the horrible facts are in my possession. For his sake I——"

"For his sake you would go down into Hades!"

"Where else am I now? What ordeal more fiery than last night and to-day? I know now that I did wrong, but the awful ruin seemed so imminent I fled through the only door of escape that appeared possible. I am punished, and I deserve all I suffer. Leave me here, or anywhere else, as you find most convenient and most comfortable for yourself."

"Pardon me. Of course your wishes determine the matter. I suggested the change, thinking that as your sole object in making this journey was to secure the papers, you would find it a relief to return as soon as you were sure of their destruction."

He wrote a few lines in his note-book and held it before her.

"Would this be entirely agreeable to you? 'Judge Allison Kent: Duncan died two days ago. I burned the "Ely Twiggs" papers to-night. Never mention them to Eglah. She wishes you to meet her in Philadelphia Saturday.'"

"Thank you; that is what I prefer. When you come back——"

"I hope never to come back. I will not lead a sham life, and I will not live under the same roof with one who, to please her father, tried to love me and found she could not."

"When you come back I shall try to be in Europe, and you may rest assured of no intrusion. My marriage gives me control of my own estate, and now I wish to know the amount it cost you to recover the bonds you delivered to the college."

"You must excuse me if I decline to answer. That matter concerns only Nina and myself. What I did was solely for her and my father."

"I shall find out, and send a check to your lawyers."

"My lawyers know absolutely nothing about it, and as your father must not suspect you heard the conversation, you will scarcely ask him. I have some letters to write, memoranda to arrange for Martin, and several telegrams to send immediately. Our train starts at two A.M., and you can get a sound sleep, which you sadly need. I ordered your dinner sent here. Do you wish your trunk?"

She shook her head.

"Try to get a good rest. You will be called in time for the train. I have papers to prepare that will keep me busy until then. Eglah—poor little girl—"

She looked up at him defiantly, but the peculiar expression in his brilliant eyes she could not understand.

He caught his mustache between his teeth, picked up the tin box, and left her.