s.

"Poor child," he said, putting his arms around her slender form and
drawing it close in his embrace, "how can I ever tell you what I have
to tell you to-night!"

She did not respond to his caress. At length, looking up in a
lifeless, stricken way, she spoke in a mechanical voice, a voice that
did not sound like her own,--

"I know it already. My father came and told me that to-morrow I
must--" She shuddered; her voice broke; then she threw her arms around
his neck and clung to him passionately. "But they can never tear me
away from you; never, never!"

How could he tell her that he came to put her away from him, that he
came to bid her farewell? He clasped her the tighter in his arms. For
an instant his mind swept all the chances of flight with her, only to
realize their utter hopelessness; then he remembered that even to
think of such a thing was treachery to the resolves he had just made.
He shook from head to foot with stormy emotion.

She lifted her head from his breast, where it was pillowed.

"Let us get horses or a canoe, and fly to-night to the desert or the
sea,--anywhere, anywhere, only to be away from here! Let us take the
trail you came on, and find our way to your people."

"Alas," replied Cecil, "how could we escape? Every tribe, far and
near, is tributary to your father. The runners would rouse them as
soon as we were missed. The swiftest riders would be on our trail;
ambuscades would lurk for us in every thicket; we could never escape;
and even if we should, a whole continent swarming with wild tribes
lies between us and my land."

She looked at him in anguish, with dim eyes, and her arms slipped from
around his neck.

"Do you no longer love Wallulah? Something tells me that you would not
wish to fly with me, even if we could escape. There is something you
have not told me."

Clasping her closely to him, he told her how he felt it was the will
of God that they must part. God had sent him on a sacred mission, and
he dared not turn aside. Either her love or the redemption of the
tribes of the Wauna must be given up; and for their sake love must be
sacrificed.

"To-day God took away the words from my lips and the spirit from my
heart. My soul was lead. I felt like one accursed. Then it came to me
that it was because I turned aside from my mission to love you. We
must part. Our ways diverge. I must walk my own pathway alone
wheresoever it leads me. God commands, and I must obey."

The ol