what
that fate would be.

He was only telling her good-by. He knew not how hard he pressed upon
those tender hands; he only knew he might never clasp them in his own
again. It was a terrible moment--terrible not alone for Mell.

One would have thought, seeing how he suffered in giving her up, that
she was the last woman in the world; whereas, we know there are
multitudes of them, many more estimable in character, some equally
desirable in person, with just such wondrous hair, just such
enchanting eyes, just such shapeliness of construction, enough in
itself to inspire mankind with the most passionate love--plenty of her
kind, but none exactly Mell!

Sensible of that detaining clasp; knowing his keen eyes scanned darkly
and hungrily every quivering feature in her unquiet face; hearing his
labored breath and the low sobs wrung from a strong man's agony, Mell
felt first as a guilty culprit.

If only he would stab her to the heart, and then himself.

We little thought, any of us, when we saw him lying in the meadow on
the grass at her feet, that out of the joyous inspiration of that
glorious summer weather, out of two young lives so beautiful, out of
young love, a thing so full of poetry and romance, would come such
wretchedness as this.

After a little while, the touch of those rose-leaf palms, the
whiteness of her face, the appeal for mercy in those eyes seeking his
own, had a soothing effect upon Jerome. He would now put forth all his
strength and quietly say good-by.

Softly he pressed to his lips one of those imprisoned hands; softly,
in a heart-sick rapture of despairing renunciation, he was about to do
the same with the other, when the glint of Rube's solitaire, the
pledge of her hated bondage to another, the glaring witness of her
treachery towards himself, flashed into his eyes and overcame all his
good resolutions. With a look of unutterable reproach, with a gesture
of undying contempt, he tossed the offending hand back upon her lap.

"Think not," he broke forth, in vehement utterance, "that no thought
of me will embitter your bridal joys! I leave you to your fate! I go
to my own! Dark it may be, but not darker than yours!"

And this was the quiet way in which he bade her good-by.

The words pierced Mell to the very soul, and, combined with the
blackness of his countenance, filled her with indefinable, but very
horrible imaginings. He had almost reached the door, when with a
smothered cry of pain, sh