s soul like lead.

At last it grew more than he could bear, and he reached a hand to
Maren's shoulder, a tentative hand, hesitating, as if it felt its touch
blasphemy.

"Ma'amselle," he faltered, "forgive me! But, oh! without confession
this night I am sick to my heart's core! I lied to you back at the cove,
though with a clean conscience, for it is love,--love of a man warm and
wild that tears my soul to tatters! I love you with all love, of saint
and sinner, of Heaven and earth, and I would have you know it!"

His low voice was shaking, as was his whole slim body, and Maren felt it
in the hand on her shoulder.

"As a man, Ma'amselle, I would give my life for one touch of your lips!
As a lost monk I would kiss your garment's hem! See!"

He dropped to his knee and, catching her beaded skirt, pressed it to his
lips again and again, passionately, swept away by his French blood.

"As I live I love you as the dog loves his master! I am naught save the
dust under your feet, the thorn you brush in the forest, yet like them I
catch and cling! Forgive, Ma'amselle, and if the future is fair for you,
think sometimes in the dusk of Marc Dupre!"

"Hush!" said Maren, catching the hand at her knee, a shaking hand more
slender than her own; "hush, my friend! You break my heart anew. I know
the inmost grace of you, the glory of the love you tell, and be it of
heaven or earth, of angel or man, I would to the Good God there was yet
life enough within me to buy it with my own! I have seen naught so holy,
so worth all price, in the years of my life. It is dear to my heart as
that life itself. Dear as yourself, my more than friend."

In all tenderness she stooped from her fair height and laid her arm
around the shoulders of the youth, drew his head against the beadwork of
McElroy's gift, and kissed him upon the lips,--once, twice, yearningly,
as a mother kisses a weakling child.

At that moment there came, borne on a waking breeze of the night, the
sound of the tom-toms, the yapping of many throats.

"The gods beckon," she said sadly; "this life and love is all awry and
we who are bound against our will must but abide the end."

"Aye," whispered young Dupre, from the warm depths of her shoulder, and
his voice was like gold for joy; "aye,--the end."

He rose swiftly.

"Forgive the passion that could forget the great business of the night,"
he said, and they went forward, though Maren's fingers still rested in
his clasp.

Thr