you have
seen the Gorgon. Beryl, my white rose! Are you ashamed to show me your
idol's face?"

"I will never go to 'Elm Bluff'."

"It is no longer necessary. You know already the features printed
there, and your avoidance stamps them with infamy. How can your lofty
soul, your pure heart, tolerate a creature so craven, so vile?"

"We love not always whom we would, or should, were choice permitted us;
and to whom I have given my heart, my whole deep heart, you shall never
learn."

The mournful smile that lent such wistful loveliness to her flushed
face, seemed to him merely a renewed defiance.

"I bide my time, knowing it will surely come. You are free, but be
careful. Once when you lay upon the brink of the grave, unconscious, I
knelt at your side and took you in my arms; laid your head on my heart,
felt your cheek touch mine. Then and there I made a covenant with my
soul; and no other man's arms shall ever enfold you. Ah, my Rosa Alba!
I could dig your grave with my own hands, sooner than see that thief
claim you. I am a proud man, and you have dragged me through the slough
of humiliation, but to-day, as I bid you good-bye, I realize how one
felt, who looking at the bust of him she loved supremely, said with her
last breath: 'Voila mon univers, mon espoir, et mes dieux!' How soon we
meet again depends solely on your future course. You know the
conditions; and I promise you I will not swerve one iota."

He took her hand, drew it across his cheek, laid it on his lips; and a
moment later walked away, with the faded flowers folded close in his
palm.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Conveniently contiguous to the busy centre of a wide and populous city,
situated on the shore of one of those great inland fresh-water seas,
whose lake line girdles the primeval American upheaval, the Laurentian
rocks,--stands in the middle of a square, enclosed by a stone coping
and an iron railing, a stately pile of brick and granite several
stories high, flanked by wings that enclose in the rear a spacious
court. The facade was originally designed in the trabeated style, and
still retained its massive entrance, with straight, grooved lintel over
the door which was adorned by four round columns; but subsequent
additions reflected the fluctuations of popular architectural taste, in
the later arched windows, the broad oriel with its carved corbel, and
in the new eastern wing, that had flowered into a Tudor tower with
bulbous cupola. The strip