word or look, or any other sign, of my love."

He paused a moment, then continued. "If that were all, I might
have borne it; I could have locked my love forever within my own
heart, and suffered in silence; but the fact that you have given me
some reason to believe that you were not wholly indifferent to me,--the
thought that I might in time have won your love,--makes the
possibilities of the future a thousand times harder to bear. It is
harder to forego the joys of Paradise when once you have had a
glimpse within! It was to this I alluded when I spoke of the
insurmountable barrier placed between myself and all that I hold
holiest and best on earth!"

"But I do not understand!" she cried, her lovely color deepening
and her eyes glowing with a new light, until Harold Mainwaring
confessed to himself that never had he seen her so beautiful. "What
barrier could ever exist between you and me?"

For an instant he looked at her in silence, an agony of love and
longing in his eyes; then drawing himself up to his full height,
he said, slowly,--

"Not until I can stand before you free and clear from the faintest
shadow of the murder of Hugh Mainwaring, will I ever ask for that
most precious gift of your love!"

Her face blanched at the mere possibility suggested by his words.
"But you are innocent!" she cried in swift protest, "and you could
prove it, even were suspicion directed against you for a time."

"Even admitting that I were, the taint of suspicion is sometimes as
lasting as the stain of crime itself."

She arose and stood proudly facing him. "Do you think I would fear
suspicion? To hear from your own lips that you love me and that
you are innocent would be enough for me; I would defy the whole
world!"

He did not at once reply, and when he spoke it was slowly and
reluctantly, as though each word were wrung from him by torture.

"My dear Miss Carleton, even to you I cannot say that I am innocent."

There was a moment's pause, during which she gazed at him,
speechless with astonishment; a moment of intense agony to Harold
Mainwaring, as he watched whether her faith in him would waver.
But she gave no sign, though she scanned his face, as the condemned
criminal scans the document handed him as the fateful day approaches,
to ascertain whether it contains his pardon or his death sentence.

"Understand me," he said at last, gently, unable longer to endure
the terrible silence, "I do not admit that I am in a