hat she has married, it may be that she
has fallen so low that you cannot marry her. But if you have loved her
once, you may love her again; whatever it was that separated you in
the past, that separates you now, that makes you prefer my daughter to
her, may come to an end when you are married, when it will be too
late, and when only trouble can come of it, and Ellen would bear that
trouble. Can I risk that?"

"But I tell you it is impossible," cried the young man. "The woman is
beyond the love of any man, at least such a man as I am, or try to
be."

"Do you mean," asked the bishop, gently, and with an eager look of
hope, "that she is dead?"

Latimer faced the father for some seconds in silence. Then he raised
his head slowly. "No," he said, "I do not mean she is dead. No, she is
not dead."

Again the bishop moved back wearily into his chair. "You mean then,"
he said, "perhaps, that she is a married woman?" Latimer pressed his
lips together at first as though he would not answer, and then raised
his eyes coldly. "Perhaps," he said.

The older man had held up his hand as if to signify that what he was
about to say should be listened to without interruption, when a sharp
turning of the lock of the door caused both father and the suitor to
start. Then they turned and looked at each other with anxious inquiry
and with much concern, for they recognized for the first time that
their voices had been loud. The older man stepped quickly across the
floor, but before he reached the middle of the room the door opened
from the outside, and his daughter stood in the door-way, with her
head held down and her eyes looking at the floor.

"Ellen!" exclaimed the father, in a voice of pain and the deepest
pity.

The girl moved toward the place from where his voice came, without
raising her eyes, and when she reached him put her arms about him and
hid her face on his shoulder. She moved as though she were tired, as
though she were exhausted by some heavy work.

"My child," said the bishop, gently, "were you listening?" There was
no reproach in his voice; it was simply full of pity and concern.

"I thought," whispered the girl, brokenly, "that he would be
frightened; I wanted to hear what he would say. I thought I could
laugh at him for it afterward. I did it for a joke. I thought--" She
stopped with a little gasping sob that she tried to hide, and for a
moment held herself erect and then sank back again into her father's
arms w