ou may possess. Keep it. But of
yourself I must know something more. You are almost a woman. You are
beautiful."

At this he tightened his grasp, and it brought him closer to her side.
She made a little struggle to draw away, but it pleased him to see that
when the first modest opposition had been tried she sat quite happily,
though trembling, with his arm around her.

"Joyce," he continued, "you have a double duty: one to your mother and
this poor invalid, whose journey toward that Father's house not made
with hands is swiftly hastening; another duty toward your nobler self--
the future that is in you and your woman's heart. I tell you again that
you are beautiful, and the slavery to which you are condemning yourself
forever is an offence against the creator of such perfection. Do you
know what it is to love?"

"I know what it is to feel kindness," she answered after a time of
silence. "I ought to know no more. Your goodness is very dear to me. We
never sleep, brother and I, but we say your name together, and ask God
to bless you."

Reybold sought in vain to suppress a confession he had resisted. The
contact of her form, her large dark eyes now fixed upon him in emotion,
the birth of the conscious woman in the virgin and her affection still
in the leashes of a slavish sacrifice, tempted him onward to the
conquest.

"I am about to retire from Congress," he said. "It is no place for me
in times so insubstantial. There is darkness and beggary ahead for all
your Southern race. There is a crisis coming which will be followed by
desolation. The generation to which your parents belong is doomed! I
open my arms to you, dear girl, and offer you a home never yet
gladdened by a wife. Accept it, and leave Washington with me and with
your brother. I love you wholly."

A happy light shone in her face a moment. She was weary to the bone
with the day's work and had not the strength, if she had the will, to
prevent the Congressman drawing her to his heart. Sobbing there, she
spoke with bitter agony:

"Heaven bless you, dear Mr. Reybold, with a wife good enough to deserve
you! Blessings on your generous heart. But I can not leave Washington.
I love another here!"

III--DUST

The Lake and Bayou Committee reaped the reward of a good action.
Crutch, the page, as they all called Uriel Basil, affected the
sensibility of the whole committee to the extent that profanity almost
ceased there, and vulgarity became a crime in the pres