oo soon for you to play the perilous game of
hearts. I should have known it, and left you to the safe and simple joys
of girlhood. Forgive me that I have kept you a prisoner so long; take
off the fetter I put on, and go, Sylvia."

"No, do not put me from you yet; do not think that I can hurt you so,
and then be glad to leave you suffering alone. Look like your kind self
if you can; talk to me as you used to; let me show you my heart and you
will see how large a place you fill in it. Let me begin again, for now
the secret is told there is no fear to keep out love; and I can give my
whole strength to learning the lesson you have tried so patiently to
teach."

"You cannot, Sylvia. We are as much divorced as if judge and jury had
decided the righteous but hard separation for us. You can never be a
wife to me with an unconquerable affection in your heart; I can never be
your husband while the shadow of a fear remains. I will have all or
nothing."

"Adam foretold this. He knew you best, and I should have followed the
brave counsel he gave me long ago. Oh, if he were only here to help us
now!"

The desire broke from Sylvia's lips involuntarily as she turned for
strength to the strong soul that loved her. But it was like wind to
smouldering fire; a pang of jealousy wrung Moor's heart, and he spoke
out with a flash of the eye that startled Sylvia more than the rapid
change of voice and manner.

"Hush! Say anything of yourself or me, and I can bear it, but spare me
the sound of Adam's name to-night. A man's nature is not forgiving like
a woman's, and the best of us harbor impulses you know nothing of. If I
am to lose wife, friend, and home, for God's sake leave me my
self-respect."

All the coldness and pride passed from Moor's face as the climax of his
sorrow came; with an impetuous gesture he threw his arms across the
table, and laid down his head in a paroxysm of tearless suffering such
as men only know.

How Sylvia longed to speak! But what consolation could the tenderest
words supply? She searched for some alleviating suggestion, some happier
hope; none came. Her eye turned imploringly to the pictured Fates above
her as if imploring them to aid her. But they looked back at her
inexorably dumb, and instinctively her thought passed beyond them to the
Ruler of all fates, asking the help which never is refused. No words
embodied her appeal, no sound expressed it, only a voiceless cry from
the depths of a contrite spiri