us,
restless, and, like a snake in the tightness of her folds and her
noiseless approach, she will smother him with kisses and sell him to his
enemies."

"Do you know her so well?" asked Agnes placidly.

"Very well. She was corrupt from childhood, but only a few of us knew
it. She grew to be beautiful, and had the quickened intelligence which,
for a while, accompanies ruined women: the unnatural sharpening of the
duplicity, the firmer grasp on man as the animal, the study of the
proprieties of life, and apparent impatience with all misbehavior. Her
timid voice assisted her cunning as if with a natural gentleness, and
invited onward the man who expected in her ample charms a bolder spirit.
She betook herself to the church for penance, perhaps, but remained
there for a character. My wife, if I have suffered, it was, perhaps, in
part because for every sin is some punishment; that woman was _my_
temptress also!"

His face was pale as he spoke these words, but he did not drop his eyes.
The wife looked at him with a face also paled and startled.

"Remember," said Andrew Zane, "that I was a man."

She walked to him in a moment and kissed his forehead.

"I will have no more deceit," said Andrew. "That is why I give you this
pain. It was long, my darling, before we loved."

"That was the source, perhaps, of Lottie's anger with me," spoke Agnes.

"I think not. There was not a sentiment between us. It is the way,
occasionally, that a very bad woman is made, by marriage or wealth,
respectable, and she declares war on her own past and its imitators. You
were pursued because you had exchanged deserts with her. You were pure
and abused; she was approved but tainted. Not your misfortunes but your
goodness rebuked her, and she lashed you behind her _alias_, as every
demon would riot in lashing the angels."

"My husband," exclaimed Agnes, "where did you draw such secrets from
woman's nature? God has blessed you with wisdom. I felt, myself, by some
intuition of our sex, that it was sin, not virtue, that took such pains
to upbraid me."

"I drew them from the old, old plant," answered Andrew Zane; "the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yonder, where I skimmed the surface of a
bad woman; here, where I am forgiven."

"If you felt remorse," said Agnes, "you were not given up."

"After _we_ were engaged that woman cast her eyes on my widowed father
and notified me that I must not stand in her way. 'If you embarrass me
by one wo