you," he said, slowly. Then his eyes fell before the sudden shame and
distress in Dorothy's.

"You do not know what do counsel me!" she cried. "Then you do
not--care--" Tears rolled over her cheeks, and Eugene gathered her
into his arms again, and laid his cheek against her fair head, and
soothed her as he would have soothed a child. "There, there," he
whispered, "it is not that, it is not that, sweet. I would die for
you, I love you so! It is not that, but you are the promised wife of
another man. How can I turn a thief even for you, Dorothy? How can I
bid you be false, and forswear yourself? There's honor as well as
love, child."

"But love is honor," said Dorothy.

"Not for a man," said Eugene.

Then she clung to him softly and modestly, and sobbed, and he kissed
her hair and whispered in one breath that she was all his own, and in
another that he knew not what to do, and was near distracted between
his love and his sense of honor, until Dorothy said something which
set him pleading for his rival whether he would or no, for the sake
of stern justice.

"I am afraid of him, I am afraid of Burr," Dorothy whispered in his
ear. "How could I have married him, when I was so afraid, even if you
had not come?"

"Afraid?"

"_You--know--what--they said--Burr did!_"

Eugene held her away from him by her slender arms, and looked at her.
"You did not believe that?"

"He would not tell me he was innocent, even when I begged him so."

"You knew he was."

"Why did he not tell me, when I begged him so?" she said, and the
soft unyielding in her tone was absolute.

"Dorothy!"

"I am so afraid--you don't know," she whispered, piteously.

"But--you know Burr was cleared."

"Yes, I know, but even now he will not tell me on the Bible, as I
asked him, that he is innocent."

"Dorothy, he _is_ innocent," Eugene said, with solemn and bitter
emphasis of which she knew not the full meaning.

"Then why does he not swear that he is, to me?" Back went Dorothy
always, in all reasoning, to the starting-point in her own mind.

"I tell you he is, child. It has been proven so."

"Then why--" Dorothy began, but Eugene interrupted her in her circle.
"There is no more cause for you to fear him than me," he said almost
harshly, in his stern resolve to be just. Then Dorothy turned on him
with sudden passion. "I am afraid," she cried out, "I shall always be
afraid; even if he were to swear to me now that he is innocent, I
shall alw