her
miserable lost life. I sat like one struck dumb, and at last, only to
say something:

"'Won't you take a seat?' I said, 'You have a long way to go;' and then
immediately I blushed at my own silliness--such foolish words, you
know. Sir,--so out of place. But she did not seem to hear me. After a
pause, she said:

"'I did what I could to save myself in time; you know that. I plainly
saw my danger--plainly--I am not naturally careless. I am not a giddy
girl, dear Flor. I walked into this with open eyes--that is, I thought
I knew the path I had chosen; I little dreamed that it could lead to
this. Did I say with open eyes? Yet I think they might be blinded by my
tears. I cried so terribly when I saw his wound, and knew it was for
me. He had often tried to make me love him, and I had told him more
than once that I never would be his, except as his wedded wife--_that_
I could never be, he told me; he had a son who was not to be defrauded
of his inheritance, and who would be shocked if he gave him a young
stepmother. 'As it is, we never can agree,' he said; 'and this would
bring us to an open rupture.' He took some trouble to make this very
plain to me, but he never succeeded in altering my resolution. I had
never heard of what he called a conscience-marriage, and all my
principles rose up against it--not to speak of my pride, that revolted
at the secresy. If two persons are worthy of each other, I thought, and
their consciences worthy of being called to witness what they do, why
should there be secret?

"'I was in sore trouble day and night, and God knows how I struggled,
Flor! To hear that proud man--naturally so violent and so imperious--to
hear him beg and beseech, and to see him suffer, and to go on living
here in this solitary wilderness beside him, without a soul to help me,
or any counsel, save my own weak heart--it was hard to bear, it was
terrible! and it was worse when he never spoke to me at all for months,
nor even looked at me; and all the while I could see how his dumb
passion was wearing him out; and then at last the blood from that
wound!--then I did feel my courage spent, and I gave myself up. Dear
Flor, if there really be a woman's pride, that could have taken her
through all this unmoved--ordeals, I may say, by fire and water--if
there be such courage, I hardly think I could covet it!

"'We took an oath,' she went on; 'we pledged ourselves to eternal
constancy and to secresy. My mind was at peace--h