nt her head had regained its
steady poise and a great change had passed over her manner.

"Mr. Blake," said she, "you are good; how good, I alone can know and
duly appreciate who have lived in your house this last year and seen
with eyes that missed nothing, just what your surroundings are and have
been from the earliest years of your proud life. But goodness must not
lead you into the committal of an act you must and will repent to your
dying day; or if it does, I who have learned my duty in the school of
adversity, must show the courage of two and forbid what every secret
instinct of my soul declares to be only provocative of shame and sorrow.
You would take me to your heart as your wife; do you realize what that
means?"

"I think I do," was his earnest reply. "Relief from heart-ache, Luttra."

Her smooth brow wrinkled with a sudden spasm of pain but her firm lips
did not quiver.

"It means," said she, drawing nearer but not with that approach which
indicates yielding, "it means, shame to the proudest family that lives
in the land. It means silence as regards a past blotted by suggestions
of crime; and apprehension concerning a future across which the shadow
of prison walls must for so many years lie. It means, the hushing of
certain words upon beloved lips; the turning of cherished eyes from
visions where fathers and daughters ay, brothers and sisters are
seen joined together in tender companionship or loving embrace. It
means,--God help me to speak out--a home without the sanctity of
memories; a husband without the honors he has been accustomed to enjoy;
a wife with a fear gnawing like a serpent into her breast; and children,
yes, perhaps children from whose innocent lips the sacred word of
grandfather can never fall without wakening a blush on the cheeks of
their parents, which all their lovesome prattle will be helpless to
chase away."

"Luttra, your father and your brother have given their consent to go
their dark way alone and trouble you no more. The shadow you speak of
may lie on your heart, dear wife, for these men are of your own blood,
but it need never invade the hearthstone beside which I ask you to sit.
The world will never know, whether you come with me or not, that
Luttra Blake was ever Luttra Schoenmaker. Will you not then give me the
happiness of striving to make such amends for the past, that you too,
will forget you ever bore any other name than the one you now honor so
truly?"

"O do not,"