aven to him ..." she made a gesture of pain ... "remember
all his goodness and be gentle with him. He must speak before you go. He
will take anything from you, and you alone can teach him patience and
submission."

"How long...." she began. He divined what she would have asked.

"Mona has known it more than a year, but no one else, for he gave no
sign. I know it only a short time. After all it is not to be wondered
at. He has been near you, working with you for years. His life has been
lonely somehow, and you seemed to fill it. Do not be hasty with him. Let
him come to his avowal and his refusal in his own way. It is all you can
do for him. Knowing you so well he probably knows what he has to
receive."

Arthur came back with his berries and poured them out on a leaf for her
to eat. Seated for a little on a rock, while he lay on the ground at her
feet, she ate to please him; but her soul in terror saw only the white
face of Lord Constantine, and thought only of the pain in store for this
most faithful friend. Oh, to have it out with him that moment! Yet it
seemed too cruel. But how go on for a month in dread of what was to
come?

She loved him in her own beautiful way. Her tears fell that night as she
sat in her room by the window watching the high moon, deep crimson,
rising through the mist over the far-off islands. How bitter to leave
her beloved even for God, when the leaving brought woe to them! So long
she had waited for the hour of freedom, and always a tangle at the
supreme moment! How could she be happy and he suffering without the
convent gates? This pity was to be the last temptation, her greatest
trial. Its great strength did not disarm her. If twenty broke their
hearts on that day, she would not give up her loved design. Let God
comfort them, since she could not. But the vision of a peaceful
entrance into the convent faded. She would have to enter, as she had
passed through life, carrying the burden of another's woe, in tears.

She could see that he never lost heart. The days passed delightfully,
and somehow his adoration pleased her. Having known him in many lights,
there was novelty in seeing him illumined by candid love. How could he
keep so high a courage with the end so dark and so near? Honora had no
experience of love, romantic love, and she had always smiled at its
expression in the novels of the time. If Arthur only knew the task he
had set for himself! She loved him truly, but marriage repelled