re for you as for a dear and only sister. There!
there! do not cry any more. It is all for the best! All for the best!" he
concluded, in a broken voice, that all his effort failed to steady.

"Le! oh, Le! I am so miserable--so miserable! Oh, Le!" she cried, looking
wildly up into his eyes and then staring fixedly down upon the sea at
their feet--"oh, Le! I wonder would the merciful Lord forgive me
if--if----" She paused and pointed downward.

Leonidas shuddered, but controlled himself. He now believed the girl to be
laboring under a temporary fit of insanity. He took her hand, raised her
up, and drawing her arm within his own, said, gently:

"Come, dear, let me take you home to your mother."

She silently assented, and he led her up the hill, through the wood to the
lawn gate, and across the lawn to the house.

They had not spoken a word since leaving the shore.

Le took her into the house, and into the sitting room usually occupied by
Mrs. Force.

That lady sat, as was her custom, in her low sewing chair beside her
worktable in the angle of the fireplace and the side window.

She arose as they entered and looked anxiously from one to the other.

Le led his companion up to her and said, in a broken voice:

"She has told me all about it. And yet I do not understand it in the
least. See! she wants attention."

Mrs. Force received the half-fainting girl in her arms, and guided her to
a large, cushioned chair, which Le hastened to push forward.

When Odalite was seated and reclining against the high, cushioned back, Le
lifted her hand, pressed it to his lips, and turned to leave the room.

Mrs. Force followed him into the hall.

"Where are you going, Le?" she inquired.

"I don't know--I don't know! I feel lost! Like Adam turned out of Eden!
And without my Eve--without my Eve!" he groaned.

"Bear it like a man, Le! You are very young, and--there are many lovely
girls in the world in your reach."

"Oh, don't. Aunt Elfrida! don't! Never mind me! Go in to Odalite--she
needs you."

"Le, do not leave the house--at least, till you see your uncle," pleaded
the lady.

"Oh, no, I shall not go away at once. I shall do nothing hastily, to hurt
her. I hurt her enough this morning, the Lord knows!" said the youth, with
a heavy sigh.

Mrs. Force looked up inquiringly.

"Oh, yes," continued Le, "I behaved like a brute! I went out of my head, I
think--when she first told me--and I raged at her! raged at the tender,