y substance to conceal itself from its
enemies; but the soul ejects an opaque vapor in which to hide from
itself! In this mist of hallucination which rises and envelopes us, the
whole appearance of life alters. Passion and desire repress the judgment
and pervert the conscience. Conclusions that are illogical, expectations
that are irrational and confidences that are groundless to the most
final and fatal absurdity seem as natural and reasonable as intuitions.

It is not in human nature to escape this perversion of thought and
feeling under the stress of temptation. One may as well try to prevent
the rise of temperature in the blood in the rage of fever. There are
times when even the upright in heart must withdraw to the safe covert
of the inner sanctuary and there fervently put up the master prayer of
the soul, "Lord, lead me not into temptation!" But if necessity or duty
calls them out into the midst of life's dangers, let them remember that
what they feel in the calm retreat, is not what will surge through their
disordered intellects and their bounding pulses when they come within
the reach of those fearful fascinations!

It was such a prayer that David had need of when he gave his hand to the
gypsy.

CHAPTER XIII.

FOUND WANTING

"How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds
done!"--King John.

The spring and summer had passed, autumn had attained the fullness of
its golden beauty, and the inevitable had happened. David and Pepeeta
had passed swiftly though not unresistingly through all the intervening
stages between a chance acquaintance and an impassioned love.

Any other husband than the quack would have foreseen this catastrophe;
but there is one thing blinder than love, and that is egotism such as
his. His colossal vanity had not even suspected that a woman who
possessed him for her husband could for a single instant bestow a
thought of interest on any other man.

Astute student of men, penetrating judge of motive and conduct that he
was, he daily beheld the evolution of a tragedy in which he was the
victim, with all the indifference of a lamb observing the preparations
for its slaughter. Because of this ignorance and indifference, the
fellowship of these two young people had been as intimate as that of
brother and sister in a home, and this new life had wrought an
extraordinary transformation in the habits and character of both.

David had abandoned the Quaker idiom fo