her promised husband, now turns away at the slightest cloud of
disapproval falling upon me. And to think, too, how I have given her all
my heart, and lavished upon her a love as deep and true as ever a man
gave a woman."

He was sure that he had been so badly used as to have sufficient grounds
for turning misanthrope and woman-hater. Thin natures are like light
wines and weak syrups in the readiness with which they sour.

The moon had risen as it did on that eventful betrothal-night. Again the
stars had sunk from sight in the sea of silver splendor rolling from the
round, full orb. Again the roadway down the hill lay like a web of fine
linen, bleaching upon an emerald meadow. Again the clear waters of the
Miami rippled in softly merry music over the white limestone of their
shallow bed. Again the river, winding through the pleasant valley,
framed in gently rising hill-sides, appeared as great silver ribbon,
decorating a mass of heavily-embroidered green velvet. Again Sardis lay
at the foot of the hills, its coarse and common place outlines softened
into glorious symmetry by the moonlight's wondrous witchery.

He stopped for a moment and glanced at the old apple-tree, under which
they had stood when

"Their spirits rushed together at the meeting of their lips."

But its raiment of odorous blossoms was gone. Instead, it bore a load
of shapeless, sour, unripened fruit. Instead of the freshling springing
grass, at its foot was now a coarse stubble. Instead of the delicately
sweet breath of violets and fruit blooms scenting the evening air came
the heavy, persistent perfume of tuberoses, and the mawkish scent of
gaudy poppies.

"Bah, it smells like a funeral," he said, and he turned away and walked
slowly down the hill. "And it is one. My heart and all my hopes lie
buried at the foot of that old apple-tree."

It had been suggested that much of the sympathy we lavish upon martyrs
is wanton waste, because to many minds, if not in fact to all, there is
a positive pleasure in considering oneself a martyr. More absolute truth
is contained in this than appears at the first blush. There are very few
who do not roll under their tongues as a sweet morsel the belief that
their superior goodness or generosity has brought them trouble and
affliction from envious and wicked inferiors.

So the honey that mingled with the gall and hysop of Harry Glen's
humiliation was the martyr feeling that his holiest affections had been