lts to me. I knew them before. I have
not loved them. Do not think that I am trying to make a virtue out
of anything I say; but in all my thoughts of you there has been no
fault of yours that I have not hidden from my sight, and have not
resolved as best I could never to see. Yet do not dream that I
have found you faultless.

"You fear I might sacrifice you to something else. It is possible.
Every man resists temptation only to a certain point; every man
has his price. It is a risk you will run with any.

"If you doubt that a man is capable of sacrificing one thing that
he loves to another that he loves more, tempt him, lie in wait for
his weakness, ensnare him in the toils of his greater passion, and
learn the truth.

"I make no defence--believe all that you say. But had you loved
me, I might have been all this, and it would have been nothing."

With this I walked slowly out of the arbor, but Georgiana stood
beside me. Her light touch was on my arm.

"Let me see things clearly!"

"You have a lifetime in which to see things clearly," I answered.
"How can that concern me now?" And I passed on into the house.

During the morning I wandered restless. For a while I lay on the
grass down behind the pines. How deep and clear are the covered
springs of memory! All at once it was a morning in my boyhood on
my father's farm. I, a little Saul of Tarsus among the birds, was
on my way to the hedge-rows and woods, as to Damascus, breathing
out threatenings and slaughter. Then suddenly the childish miracle,
which no doubt had been preparing silently within my nature, wrought
itself out; for from the distant forest trees, from the old orchard,
from thicket and fence, from the wide green meadows, and down out
of the depths of the blue sky itself, a vast chorus of innocent
creatures sang to my newly opened ears the same words: "Why
persecutest thou me?" One sang it with indignation; another with
remonstrance; still another with resignation; others yet with
ethereal sadness or wild elusive pain. Once more the house-wren
aloud, "_per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test_!"
And as I peeped into the brush-pile, again the brown thrush, building
within, said, "_thou--thou--thou_!"

Through all the years since I had thought myself changed, and craved
no greater glory than to be accounted the chief of their apostles.
But now I was stained once more with the old guilt, and once more
I could hear