us close for some seconds. The thirst and hunger of all these
days of rack and anguish must be assuaged before either could talk. But
at last she drew a little back and looked up into his face.

"John," she said softly, "I read in an English paper a week ago that
your wedding was fixed for the seventh of October--my birthday. Is it
the truth?"

He clasped his hands in agony.

"It can never now be so," he said. "I cannot, I will not go through with
it. Oh, Halcyone, my darling one, you would pity me, although you would
despise me, if you knew--"

"I could never despise you," she answered, nestling once more in his
arms. "John, for me nothing you could do would make any difference--you
would still be my love; and if you were weak I would make you strong,
and if cold and hungry, I would feed and comfort you, and if wicked, I
would only see you good."

"Oh, my dear, my dear," he said, "you were always as an angel of
sweetness. Listen to the whole degrading story, and tell me then of that
which I must do."

She took one of his hands and held it in both of hers; and it was as if
some stream of comfort flowed to him through their soft warm touch and
enabled him to begin his ugly task.

He told her the whole thing from the beginning. Of his ambitions, and
how they held chief place in his life, and how he had meant to marry
Cecilia Cricklander as an aid to their advancement. He glossed over
nothing of his own baseness, but went on to show how, from the moment he
had seen her upon that Good Friday at the orchard house, his
determination about Cecilia Cricklander had begun to waver, until the
night under the tree when passion overcame every barrier and he knew he
must possess her--Halcyone--for his wife.

He made no excuse for himself; he continued the plain tale of how, his
ambitions still holding him, he had selfishly tried to keep both joy and
them, by asking her--she who was so infinitely above him--to descend to
the invidious position of a secret wife.

She knew the rest until it came to the cause of his accident, and, when
she heard it occurred because of his haste to get to her before she
should reach the house, she gave a little moan of anguish and leaned her
head against his breast.

So the story went on--of his agonized thoughts and fever and fears--of
his comprehension that she had been taken from him, and of the utter
hopelessness of his financial position, and the whole outlook, until he
came to the night