ible.

"Well, I mean," she said, speaking nervously, but with an effort to
control her excitement, "the other day you spoke of our being married,
and I said I couldn't stand a quiet life. Stephen, I will marry you now,
and go anywhere with you. I will be content with any life, any
monotony--only take me from here at once! I loathe this place, this
life." She stopped suddenly, and a wave of crimson blood swept over the
white face. "I want to be taken away," she repeated.

Stephen looked at her a moment in silence, with a sense of apprehension
and alarm. He could not do as she asked; he was not free--his claim held
him.

"I don't know quite what you mean," he said, a little stiffly, though he
felt he did know. "It would be quite impossible for me to go away now;
my whole heart's in the work, and I've sunk all I had in it."

"Yes; and your soul too," said Katrine suddenly, looking at him with
shining eyes and a calm face. "You're a slave now to your gold, the
same as we all are here--a community of slaves," and she laughed.

Stephen grew red, and looked confused, alarmed, and angry, all at the
same time.

"Nobody would go now," he said, remonstratingly, "and leave ground like
that. It would be insanity. Ask Talbot, ask anybody if they would."

"Talbot!" repeated Katrine, scornfully; "he's the worst slave of all;
but then he never preached about his soul, and wanting to reform
people."

"No one can reform you if you won't reform yourself," replied Stephen,
coldly; and there he spoke the truth.

"Who was it who has put in our prayer, 'Lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil'? Here I live in temptation: I am always thrown
into evil. If I were not--" Her voice was very quiet, and had a strange
pathetic note in it. It ceased, and then there was silence.

Stephen felt as if a hand were laid on his lips and crushed down the
voice that kept struggling from his heart. A second more, and then the
girl laughed suddenly.

"Oh, I was stupid! I did not know what I was saying, did not mean it
anyway. It's quite right for you to stick to your claim and the idea you
started with, and so on. You will make a great success if you do, and
that is all you want!"

Her tone was jesting and cynical as ever now--the usual hardness had
come back to her face. The moment of submission, of confidence, of
repentance, had passed--a moment when she could have been moved and won
to any life he wished, and he had lost it. He fel