ch alone
keeps us from being swept away. Have mercy, David! Spare me a little
longer. Spare me this one day at least. If any troubled heart had ever
need of the rest and peace of such a day as this, it is mine! Let us
give ourselves up to these soothing influences. Let us wander. Let us
dream and let us love."

"Love! This accursed Platonic affection is not love," he answered
savagely.

"David," she said with an enforced calmness, "you must not speak so. It
will do no good. There is something in me stronger than this passion.
From the bottom of my soul there has come a sense of duty to a power
higher than myself and I will be true to it. I believe that it is God
who speaks. You may appeal to my mind, and I cannot answer you, but my
heart has reasons of its own higher than the reason itself. It was you
who told me this! You told me when you were so beautiful, so good, so
true that I know you were right, and I shall never doubt it. I am not
what I was. I am, oh! so different. I cannot understand; but I am
different."

There was in this delicate and ethereal girl who spoke so fearlessly
something which held the man, strong in his physical might, in an
inexplicable and irresistible awe. Before a mountain, beside the sea,
beneath the stars and in the presence of a virtuous woman, emotions of
wonder and reverence possess the souls of men.

Subdued by this influence, David said, with more gentleness: "But what
are we to do? We cannot live in this way. We have been forced into a
situation from which we must escape, even if we have to act against our
consciences."

"I do not think that this is so! I do not believe that any one can be
placed against his will in a situation that is opposed to his
conscience! There must be some other way to do. A door will open. Let us
wait and hope a little longer. Let us have another happy day at least,"
Pepeeta said.

Heaving a sigh and shrugging his shoulders as if to throw off a burden,
David answered, "Well, let it be as you wish. I have had to suffer so
much that perhaps I can endure it a little longer. I do not want to make
you unhappy. I will try."

"Oh! thank you, thank you a thousand times; that is like yourself!"
Pepeeta said, her face aglow with gratitude.

It was a light from the soul itself that shone through the thin
transparency of that face, pale with thought and suffering, and gave it
its new radiance.

The world around them was steeped in autumn beauty. A gigantic s