ured, wringing her hands in nervous
constraint; "but time, you know, Jerome, time softens everything."

"It does!" he said, harshly--"even the memory of a crime!"

"What do you mean by that?" exclaimed Mell, every word of his filling
her with indefinable fears.

"I mean what I say. Once out of the way, you and Rube, the two beings
most dear to me on earth, could be happy together; you have told me
so. Then, how selfish in me--"

"Oh, Jerome, you would not! Surely you would not do such a thing!"

"I do not say that I would, nor that I would not. A desperate man is
not to be depended on either by himself or others. I only know that in
this fearful upheaval of all my life's aims and ends, any fate seems
easier than living. But Mellville--" his tones were now quiet, but
they were firm; his lips were set in angles of immovable resolve; his
brow bent and dark with the shadows of unlifting determination. It
would be difficult to imagine a more striking figure than Jerome in
the role of a man who had made up his mind--

"But Mellville, this struggle must end. It must end _now_, or it will
put an end to us. I did not come here to-night to submit to the
humiliation of begging a woman to marry me against her will. I came to
rescue a being in distress from the painful consequences of her own
rash act. Now, then, you love me, or you do not? You will marry me, or
you will not? Which is it? Answer! In five minutes I leave this house,
with or without you!"

He dropped upon his knees at her feet; he snatched her to his breast.
Reason was gone, his soul all aflame:

"Mell, listen: Love is more than raiment, more than food, more than
the world's censure or the world's praise. It is sweeter in life than
life itself! But time presses; the other wedding comes on apace; we
have no time to spare. An hour's hard driving will bring us to Parson
Fordham's, well known to me. There we will be married at once, and
catch the early train at Pudney. Our names will be an execration and a
by-word for a little time, but what of that? What though all friends
turn their backs upon us! Together we will enter hopefully upon a new
life, loving God and each other--a life of truer things, Mell; a life
consecrated to each other and glorified by perfect love and perfect
trust. Will you lead that life with me?"

"No, I will not!"

"What, Mellville!" he cried. "You will not! I thought you loved me,
loved me as I loved you?"

"Once I loved you," she sai