en all
doubts and fears were swept away, and love rushed back in an impetuous
torrent, and he knew that to lose her were ten thousand times worse
than death.

"My beautiful! my own! my darling! May Heaven pity us both! for be
your secret what it may, I can not lose you--I can not! Life without
you were tenfold worse than the bitterest death! My own poor girl! I
know she suffers, too, for this miserable secret, this sin of
others--for such it must be. She looked up in my face with truthful,
innocent eyes, and told me she never saw this man until she met him
that day in the library, and I know she spoke the truth! My love, my
wife! You asked me to trust you, and I thrust you aside! I spoke and
acted like a brute! I will trust you! I will wait! I will never
doubt you again, my own beloved bride!"

And then, in a paroxysm of love and remorse, the young husband strode
out of the library and upstairs to his wife's room. He found her
alone, sitting by the window, in her loose white morning-robe, a book
lying idly on her knee, herself whiter than the dress she wore. She
was not reading, the dark eyes looked straight before them with an
unutterable pathos that it wrung his heart to see.

"My love! my life!" He had her in his strong arms, strained to his
breast as if he never meant to let her go. "My own dear Harrie! Can
you ever forgive me for the brutal words I used--for the brutal way I
acted?"

"My Everard! my beloved husband! My darling! my darling! You are
not--you will not be angry with your poor little Harrie?"

"I could not, my life! What is the world worth to us if we can not
love and trust? I do love you, God alone knows how well! I will trust
you, though all the world should rise up against you!"

"Thank Heaven! thank Heaven! Everard, dearest, I can not tell you--I
can not--how miserable I have been! If I lost your love I should die!
Trust me, my husband--trust me! Love me! I have no one left in the
wide world but you!"

She broke down in a wild storm of womanly weeping. He held her in
silence--the hysterics did her good. He only knew that he loved her
with a passionate, consuming love, and not ten million secrets could
keep them apart.

Presently she raised her head and looked at him.

"Everard, have you--have you seen that man?"

His heart contracted with a sudden sharp pang, but he strove to
restrain himself and be calm.

"Parmalee? Yes, Harrie; I left him not an hour ago.