mber. She knew how that
active mind of hers would set the young man's thoughts at work, when
what he wanted was rest of every faculty. Were not these good and
sufficient reasons for her decision? What others could there be?

So Euthymia kept on with her visits, until she blushed to see that she
was continuing her charitable office for one who was beginning to
look too well to be called an invalid. It was a dangerous condition of
affairs, and the busy tongues of the village gossips were free in their
comments. Free, but kindly, for the story of the rescue had melted every
heart; and what could be more natural than that these two young people
whom God had brought together in the dread moment of peril should find
it hard to tear themselves asunder after the hour of danger was past?
When gratitude is a bankrupt, love only can pay his debts; and if
Maurice gave his heart to Euthymia, would not she receive it as payment
in full?

The change which had taken place in the vital currents of Maurice
Kirkwood's system was as simple and solid a fact as the change in
a magnetic needle when the boreal becomes the austral pole, and the
austral the boreal. It was well, perhaps, that this change took place
while he was enfeebled by the wasting effects of long illness. For
all the long-defeated, disturbed, perverted instincts had found their
natural channel from the centre of consciousness to the organ which
throbs in response to every profound emotion. As his health gradually
returned, Euthymia could not help perceiving a flush in his cheek,
a glitter in his eyes, a something in the tone of his voice, which
altogether were a warning to the young maiden that the highway of
friendly intercourse was fast narrowing to a lane, at the head of which
her woman's eye could read plainly enough, "Dangerous passing."

"You look so much better to-day, Mr. Kirkwood," she said, "that I think
I had better not play Sister of Charity any longer. The next time we
meet I hope you will be strong enough to call on me."

She was frightened to see how pale he turned,--he was weaker than she
thought. There was a silence so profound and so long that Mrs. Butts
looked up from the stocking she was knitting. They had forgotten the
good woman's presence.

Presently Maurice spoke,--very faintly, but Mrs. Butts dropped a stitch
at the first word, and her knitting fell into her lap as she listened to
what followed.

"No! you must not leave me. You must never leav