point, she burst into tears.

"I am cruel," she said, "selfishly cruel to you, who have been so good
to me--but whom can I turn to except to you? How can we abandon Simeon
without raising a finger to save him? Say you forgive me."

He held out his hand in mute acquiescence. Her sneers had stung him to
the quick, but her appeal to his manhood for help in her distress
moved him deeply.

"Perhaps," she went on, half to herself, "perhaps if I had been a
better wife--if I had loved him more, I could bear it better--but it
is so pitiful. He has always been alone in life, and now he is dying
alone."

Stephen, who was pacing the floor, tried not to listen. He knew she
was not thinking of him when she was confessing her shortcomings to
her own conscience, but the admission that she felt herself lacking in
love to Simeon filled him with a deep joy. He did not dare to linger.

"I am going," he said, gently. "Good-by, Deena. Will you pray God to
send you back the man who loves you?"

She stood staring at him dumb with misery, but as the door shut
between them a cry of anguish burst from her very soul.

"Come back!" she cried. "Oh, Stephen, come back! I can't bear it! I
can't let you go! Don't you know I love you?--and I have sent you off
to die!"

She knew that he had gone--that her appeal was to the empty air, and
she flung herself on the sofa in a frenzy of sobs. But the cry reached
Stephen in the hall, where he stood battling with himself against his
yearning for one more look, one more word to carry with him, and at
the sound his resolution melted like wax in the flame of his passion.
With a bound he was back in the room, on his knees beside her,
soothing her with tenderest endearments--pouring out the fullness of
his love.

"Must I go, Deena?" he pleaded. "Must I leave you when I know you love
me? And for what?--a search for the dead!"

At his words her conscience woke with a stab of shame.

"Yes, go!" she said. "Go quickly. A moment ago I sent you in the name
of compassion; now I send you in expiation for this one intolerable
glimpse of Heaven."

* * * * *

Stephen, eager to do her bidding, went straight to Mrs. Star's house
to take leave of the only person to whom he owed the obligations of
family affection, and found that redoubtable lady on a sofa in her
dressing room. In answer to his expressions of regret at this
intimation of invalidism, she gave an angry groan.

"Oh, ye