floor.

"You say you know me, but you don't. You don't know what I am--what I am
capable of. But I must tell you,--the thought of it is stifling me.
Once, only two years ago, I had a terrible temptation. It came to me
through some one whom I loved--very dearly. I was ready to give up
everything--_everything_, you understand--for him; and I would have done
it, only--God was good to me. He made it impossible for me, and I was
saved. But I am just as bad, just as guilty, as if he had let it
happen."

It was done. The unutterable thing was said. For once Audrey had been
absolutely truthful and sincere. The soul that he had evoked had come
forth as it were new-born out of the darkness.

At first neither of them spoke. Then he sat down and thanked her,
simply, for what she had just told him. But to his own shame and grief
he had nothing more to say. He had heard many a confession, and from
many a guiltier woman's lips, but none so piteous, because none so
purely spontaneous, as this. And to all he had given pity, counsel, and
help.

But now he was dumb.

She was thirsting for help, for help that she could understand. She
clasped her hands imploringly and looked into his face, but it had no
pity for her and no deliverance. She could see nothing there but
grief--grief terrible and profound.

"I see. Then you too judge me--like the rest."

"God forbid. I judge no man." Which was true, for it was the woman he
had judged.

She looked at him again, a long look full of wonder and reproach; then
she went quietly away.

She had reached the end of the narrow passage leading from the study to
the front hall, when she recollected that she had left behind her a
small manual of devotion. He had given it to her not long ago. She went
back for it, and knocked softly at the study door. There was no answer,
and supposing that he had gone through into the room beyond, she opened
the door and looked in.

He was kneeling in the far corner of the study, with his hands stretched
out before the crucifix. From the threshold where she stood she could
see the agony of his uplifted face and hear his prayer. "O wretched man
that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

Audrey knew then that for one moment the love she had hungered and
thirsted after, more than after righteousness, had been actually within
her grasp, and that she had lost it. The shadow of an uncommitted sin
stood between her and the one man by whom and for