! Innocent of this sin, as the
angels that see Thy face."

CHAPTER XVIII.

As a glassy summer sea suddenly quivers, heaves, billows under the
strong steady pressure of a rising gale, so that human mass surged and
broke in waves of audible emotion, when Beryl's voice ceased; for the
grace and beauty of a sorrowing woman hold a spell more potent than
volumes of forensic eloquence, of juridic casuistry, of rhetorical
pyrotechnics, and at its touch, the latent floods of pity gushed;
people sprang to their feet, and somewhere in the wide auditory a woman
sobbed. Habitues of a celebrated Salon des Etrangers recall the
tradition of a Hungarian nobleman who, apparently calm, nonchalant,
debonair, gambled desperately; "while his right hand, resting easily
inside the breast of his coat, clutched and lacerated his flesh till
his nails dripped with blood." With emotions somewhat analogous, Mr.
Dunbar sat as participant in this judicial rouge et noir, where the
stakes were a human life, and the skeleton hand of death was already
outstretched. Listening to the calm, mournful voice which alone had
power to stir and thrill his pulses, he could not endure the pain of
watching the exquisite face that haunted him day and night; and when he
computed the chances of her conviction, a maddening perception of her
danger made his brain reel.

To all of us comes a supreme hour, when realizing the adamantine
limitations of human power, the "thus far, no farther" of relentless
physiological, psychological and ethical statutes under which humanity
lives, moves, has its being--our desperate souls break through the
meshes of that pantheistic idolatry which kneels only to "Natural
Laws"; and spring as suppliants to Him, who made Law possible. We take
our portion of happiness and prosperity, and while it lasts we wander
far, far away in the seductive land of philosophical speculation, and
revel in the freedom and irresponsibility of Agnosticism; and lo! when
adversity smites, and bankruptcy is upon us, we toss the husks of the
"Unknowable and Unthinkable" behind us, and flee as the Prodigal who
knew his father, to that God whom (in trouble) we surely know.

Certainly Lennox Dunbar was as far removed from religious tendencies as
conformity to the canons of conventional morality and the habits of an
honorable gentleman in good society would permit; yet to-day, in the
intensity of his dread, lest the "consummate flower" of his heart's
dearest