nd's temples, and putting forth
her strength lifted them and looked tenderly into his eyes.

"Dear heart, you do not frighten me. You know how unaccountably fear
deserts me in fearful moments. But I know there's nothing for either of
us to fear now. This is all in your tortured imagination, and there,
though you had not seen me, it would have stayed; you never would have
come to the act. Arthur, your soul is not lost. You who have pointed the
way of escape and deliverance so clearly and savingly to so many, you
need not miss it now yourself."

"Idle words, Isabel,--idle, idle words. The very words of Christ are
idle to me until I give you up."

"Give me up, my husband? Dear love, you cannot! You shall not! I will
not be given up. You haven't the cause, and I haven't the cause."

"Oh, Isabel, I stole you! And the curse of God has gone with the theft,
and with every step of the thief, from the first day till now. From the
first day until now God has lifted that other man up and brought me
down. And yet, before God who said, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
wife, he loves you this moment--now!--with the love of a man for a
woman."

"Arthur, no! If he did"--

"Isabel, if he did not--if he did not love you yet as before he lost
you--oh! if he did not love you infinitely more now than then--he would
not be Leonard Byington. That is all my evidence, all my argument, all
the ground of my hate; and I hate him with a hatred that has
finished--finished!--with my heart, and is devouring my brain."

"Oh, my poor husband, listen to"--

"Listen to me!" he broke in. "Listen before I lose the blessed impulse
to say there is but one cure. I must give you up to Leonard Byington.
Oh, let me speak! I took you from him by law; by law I will give you
back."

"Do you mean divorce, Arthur?"

"I do."

"On what ground?"

"On the ground of ill treatment. You shall bring suit; I will plead
guilty."

She rose, with his temples still in her hands. "Ah! whose words are idle
now?"

She bent over him with eyes of passionate kindness. "You did not take me
from him. You asked me to take you, and for better for worse, till death
us do part, I took you, Arthur, knowing as much of any other man's love
for me as I know at this hour. You could not steal me; the shame would
be mine, to have let you. You are no thief! I am no stolen thing! You
shall be happy with me; you shall not give me up!"

He leaped to his feet and snatched her into