oung girl, a child,
when he was still not a man's full age. It was in the country, in the
mountains of America, and--he loved her. Both were very poor; he, a
student, earning the means to complete his education in the university.
He had dedicated himself to his church, and with the temperament of
the Puritans, he forbade himself all thoughts of love. But he was of a
passionate and impulsive nature, and in a moment of abandon he confessed
his love. The child was bewildered, frightened; she shrank from his
avowal, and he, filled with remorse for his self-betrayal, bade her let
it be as if it had not been; he bade her think of him no more."

Clementina sat as if powerless to move, staring at Belsky. He paused in
his walk, and allowed an impressive silence to ensue upon his words.

"Time passed: days, months, years; and he did not see her again. He
pursued his studies in the university; at their completion, he entered
upon the course of divinity, and he is soon to be a minister of his
church. In all that time the image of the young girl has remained in his
heart, and has held him true to the only love he has ever known. He will
know no other while he lives."

Again he stopped in front of Clementina; she looked helplessly up at
him, and he resumed his walk.

"He, with his dreams of renunciation, of abnegation, had thought some
day to return to her and ask her to be his. He believed her capable of
equal sacrifice with himself, and he hoped to win her not for himself
alone, but for the religion which he put before himself. He would have
invited her to join her fate with his that they might go together on
some mission to the pagan--in the South Seas, in the heart of Africa,
in the jungle of India. He had always thought of her as gay but good,
unworldly in soul, and exalted in spirit. She has remained with him a
vision of angelic loveliness, as he had seen her last in the moonlight,
on the banks of a mountain torrent. But he believes that he has
disgraced himself before her; that the very scruple for her youth, her
ignorance, which made him entreat her to forget him, must have made her
doubt and despise him. He has never had the courage to write to her
one word since all those years, but he maintains himself bound to her
forever." He stopped short before Clementina and seized her hands. "If
you knew such a girl, what would you have her do? Should she bid him
hope again? Would you have her say to him that she, too, had been
f