his own and held it, looking first
at her and then at David with an expression of such surprise as to
deceive his accomplice scarcely less than his victim. Young,
inexperienced, innocent in this sin at least, she stood between
them--helpless.

It is one thing for a woman deliberately to renounce her marriage vows
to taste the sweets of forbidden pleasure, but quite another for a heart
so loyal to duty, to be betrayed into crime by an ingenuity worthy of
devils.

Child of misfortune that she was, victim of a series of untoward and
fatal circumstances, she had reason all her life to regret her
credulity; but never to reproach herself for wrong intentions. Her heart
often betrayed her; but her soul was never corrupted. She ought to have
been more careful--alas, yes, she ought--but she meant no sin.

Now that the confidence of Pepeeta had been secured, David's part in
this drama became comparatively easy.

He listened to the brief conversation in which by a well-constructed
chain of fictitious reasonings the judge riveted upon the too eager mind
of the child-wife the conclusion that she was free. When this arch
villain had concluded his arguments every suspicion had vanished from
her soul, and as he rose to depart she took him by the hand and bade him
a kindly and almost affectionate farewell. "Do not afflict yourself with
this painful memory," she said gently.

"I shall not need to afflict myself," he replied; "my memory will
afflict me, for I am as guilty as if the result had been what I
expected; and if in the coming years you find a moment now and then in
which you can lift up a prayer for a man who has forfeited his claim to
mercy, I beg you to devote it to him who from the depths of his heart
wishes you joy. Good-bye."

With many assurances of her pardon, Pepeeta followed him to the door and
bade him farewell.

When she returned to David her face was luminous with happiness, and
although he had begun already to experience a reaction and to suffer
remorse for his successful infamy, it was only like a drop of poison in
the ocean of his joy.

"Did I not tell you that all would be well?" she cried, approaching him
and extending both her hands. "But how sudden and how strange it is. It
is too good to be true. I cannot realize that I am free. I am like a
little bird that hops about its cage, peeps through the door which its
mistress' hand has opened, and knows not what to think. It wishes to go;
but it is fright