up to the law and burned me."

"God forbid!" he cried, and hid his face with his hands. The very
quietness of her speech set an edge on horror. "God forbid!"

"Ay, but men allow!" she answered drearily. "What if I was mad last
night, and in my madness denied my Maker? I am sane to-day, but I must
burn, if it be known! I must burn!"

"Not by my mouth!" he cried, his brow damp with sweat. "Never, I swear
it! If there be guilt, on my head be the guilt!"

"You mean it? You mean that?" she said.

"I do."

"You will be silent?"

"I will."

Her lips parted, hope in her eyes shone--hope which showed how deep her
despair had been. "And you will ask no questions?" she whispered.

"I will ask no questions," he answered. He stifled a sigh.

She drew a deep breath of relief, but she did not thank him. It was a
thing for which no thanks could be given. She stood a while, sad and
thoughtful, reflecting, it seemed, on what had passed; then she turned
slowly and left him, crossed the open space, and entered the house,
walking as one under a heavy burden.

And he? He remained, troubled at one time by the yearning to follow and
comfort and cherish her; cast at another into a cold sweat by the
recollection of that voice in the night, and the strange ties which
bound her to Basterga. Innocent, it seemed to him, that connection could
not be. Based on aught but evil it could hardly be. Yet he must endure,
witness, cloak it. He must wait, helpless and inactive, the issue of it.
He must lie on the rack, drawn one way by love of her, drawn the other
by daily and hourly suspicions, suspicions so strong and so terrible
that even love could hardly cast them out.

For the voice he had heard at midnight, and the horrid laughter, which
greeted the words of sacrilege--were facts. And her subjection to
Basterga, the man of evil past the evil name, was a fact. And her terror
and her avowal were facts. He could not doubt, he could not deny them.
Only--he loved her. He loved her even while he doubted her, even while
he admitted that women as young and as innocent had been guilty of the
blackest practices and the most evil arts. He loved her and he suffered:
doubting, though he could not abandon her. The air was fresh about him,
the world lay sunlit under his eyes. But the beauty of the world had not
saved young and tender women, who on such mornings had walked barefoot,
none comforting them, to the fiery expiation of their crimes.
Perhaps--