e--marry Margaret Cruger."

"This is most horrible. This man, then, this Lansing Harold, is an
incarnation of evil?"

"I don't know whether he is or not," Winthrop answered, irritably. "Yes,
he is, I suppose; we all are. Not you, of course," he added, glancing at
his companion, and realizing as he did so that here was a man who was an
incarnation of good. Then the opposing feeling swept over him again,
namely, that this man was good simply because he could not be evil; it
was not that he had resisted temptation so much as that he had no
capacity for being tempted. "An old woman," he thought.

He himself was very different from that, he knew well what temptation
meant! A flush crossed his face. "Perhaps Lanse can't help loving her,"
he said, flinging it out obstinately.

"A man can always help a shameful feeling of that sort," the clergyman
answered, with sternness. He drew up his tall figure, his face took on
dignity. "We are not the beasts that perish."

"We may not be altogether beasts, and yet we may not be able to help
it," Winthrop answered, getting up and walking across the room.
Margaret's little work-table stood there, gay with ribbons and fringes;
mechanically he fingered the spools and bright wools it held.

"At least we can control its manifestations," replied Middleton Moore,
still with a deep severity of voice and eyes.

"You would like to have all sinners of that disposition (which doesn't
happen to be yours) consumed immediately, wouldn't you? for fear of
their influencing others," said Winthrop, leaving the work-table and
walking about the room. "In the days of the burnings, now, when it was
for strictly wicked persons of that tendency, I suspect you would have
brought a few fagots yourself--wouldn't you?--even if you hadn't taken a
turn at the bellows."

Mr. Moore turned and surveyed him in unfeigned astonishment.

"I beg your pardon," said the younger man, "I don't know what I'm
saying. I'll go out for a while, and try the fresh air."

When he came back half an hour later, Margaret had returned.

"Ah! you have had a walk? The air is probably pleasant," said the
clergyman, welcoming him kindly. He wished to show that he had forgotten
the bellows. "I was on the point of saying to Mrs. Harold, as you came
in, that in case she should be thinking of leaving this house, I will
hope most warmly that she will find it consistent with her plans to
return to us at Gracias."

"I should much rather st