rime has been my love!"

"From the bottom of my heart I pity you!" Stuart broke in, softly. "Not
merely because I know that you have committed murder, but because you
lack the moral power to realize that it is a crime. The state will
never reach your act with the law. But the big thing is you have no
consciousness of guilt, and feel no remorse because you have no soul.
You have only desires and impulses. You must have these desires
fulfilled each moment. That's why you couldn't wait for me to earn my
fortune honestly, and so betrayed me for gold. I can see it all now.
Your beauty has blinded me. The touch of your hand, the perfume of your
breath, the sweet memories of our young life together have held me in a
spell."

"For God's sake, Jim!" she cried fiercely--"don't--don't talk like
that! I can't endure it! You don't mean, you can't mean that you are
going to turn from me now! Just when I've found your love. Tell me that
you hate me, if you will, strike me, tell me I was a murderess when I
stabbed your heart twelve years ago, but you must love me or I'll die!
We love because we love. I'd love you if you had killed a hundred men!"

Stuart looked at her through a mist of tears.

"The spell is broken, Nan, dear, our romance is ended. I don't say it
in pride or anger, I say it in sorrow--a great deep, pitying sorrow,
that cuts and hurts!"

Nan suddenly threw her arms around his neck and held him convulsively.

"My darling, you can't leave me! I'm pleading for life! Had I been the
shallow, soulless creature which you believe surely I might have been
content with my gilded toys. But I was not. I was just a woman with a
heart that could break. Suppose I have committed a crime? I dared it
for love--a love so great, so wonderful, that I, who am weak and timid,
afraid to be alone in the dark, faced death and hell for you."

"No, dear, I offered you my life and love, at least without the stain
of crime. I offered to go with you to the ends of the earth. You didn't
do this thing for love."

He slowly drew the rounded arms from his neck, and looked long and
tenderly into the depths of her eyes.

The pleading voice ceased. The woman saw and understood. She had at
last passed out of his world. Only the memory of a girl he had once
loved and idealized remained, and that memory was now unapproachable.
The living woman was no longer the figure in the mental picture. The
struggle was over.

He extended his hand, clasped hers,