.

"Why will you not believe me, darling?" some one was saying. A great
rush of emotion--fear, anguish, hatred, shook my very soul. "Your
scepticism would make Tyndall tear his hair. Angels have no business
to be so sceptical. You are always doubting me, always darkening my
life by your irrational fears."

"But, Victor," answered another voice, which was none other than
Hildegard's, "he is certainly a very good man, and would not tell me
anything he believed to be untrue. Why, then, did he warn me so
solemnly against you? Even though I love you, I cannot help feeling
that there is something in your past which you hide from me."

"If you will listen to that white-livered hypocrite, it is useless for
me to try to convince you. But, if you must know it,--though, mind you,
I tell you this only because you compel me,--I once interfered,
because my conscience forced me to do so, in a very disgraceful
love-affair of his in Denmark. He has hated me ever since, and is now
taking his vengeance. I will give you the details some other time.
Now, are you satisfied?"

"No, Victor, no. I am not. It is not because I have been listening to
others, that I torment you with these ungrateful questions. Sometimes
a terrible dread comes over me, and though my heart rebels against it,
I cannot conquer it. I feel as if some dark memory, some person,
either living or dead, were standing between us, and would ever keep
you away from me. It is terrible, Victor, but I feel it even now."

"And then all my love, my first and only abiding passion, my life,
which I would gladly lay down at your feet--all goes for naught,
merely because a foolish dream has taken possession of you. Ah, you
are ill, my darling, you are nervous."

"No, no, do not kiss me. Not to-night, Victor, not to-night."

The horrible discovery had completely stunned me. I stood as if
spell-bound, and could neither stir nor utter a sound. But a sudden
rustling of the leaves within broke through the torpor of my senses,
and, with three great strides, I stood at the entrance to the arbor.
Dannevig, instantly recognizing me, slipped dexterously out, and in
the next moment I heard him leaping over the fence, and running away
over the crisp sand. Miss Hildegard stood still and defiant before me
in the twilight, and the audible staccato of her breath revealed to my
ears the agitation which the deepening shadows hid from my eyes. An
overwhelming sense of compassion came over me, as fo