it was his duty to wrestle and strive with her weak spirit, to
implore her to reveal her new intrigue to her husband, and then he would
help her to sue for his forgiveness. It was a part of the inconsistency
of his religious convictions; in his human passion he was perfectly
unselfish, and had already forgiven her the offense against himself. He
would see her at once!

But it happened to be a quiet, intense night, with the tremulous
opulence of a full moon that threw quivering shafts of light like summer
lightning over the blue river, and laid a wonderful carpet of intricate
lace along the path that wound through the willows to the crest. There
was the dry, stimulating dust and spice of heated pines from below; the
languorous odors of syringa; the faint, feminine smell of southernwood,
and the infinite mystery of silence. This silence was at times softly
broken with the tender inarticulate whisper of falling leaves, broken
sighs from the tree-tops, and the languid stretching of wakened and
unclasping boughs. Madison Wayne had not, alas! taken into account this
subtle conspiracy of Night and Nature, and as he climbed higher, his
steps began to falter with new and strange sensations. The rigidity
of purpose which had guided the hard religious convictions that always
sustained him, began to relax. A tender sympathy stole over him; a
loving mercy to himself as well as others stole into his heart. He
thought of HER as she had nestled at his side, hand in hand, upon the
moonlit veranda of her father's house, before his hard convictions had
chilled and affrighted her. He thought of her fresh simplicity, and what
had seemed to him her wonderful girlish beauty, and lo! in a quick turn
of the path he stood breathless and tremulous before the house. The
moonbeams lay tenderly upon the peaceful eaves; the long blossoms of the
Madeira vine seemed sleeping also. The pink flush of the Cherokee rose
in the unreal light had become chastely white.

But he was evidently too late for an interview. The windows were blank
in the white light; only one--her bedroom--showed a light behind the
lowered muslin blind. Her draped shadow once or twice passed across it.
He was turning away with soft steps and even bated breath when suddenly
he stopped. The exaggerated but unmistakable shadow of a man stood
beside her on the blind.

With a fierce leap as of a maniac, he was at the door, pounding,
rattling, and uttering hoarse and furious outcries. E