it was only
indirectly so.

"Athalia," he said, "there's only one kind of pain in this world that
never gets cured. It's the pain that comes when you remember that you've
made somebody who loved you unhappy--not for a principle, but for your
own pleasure. I know that pain, and I know how it lasts. Once I did
something, just to please myself, that hurt mother's feelings. I'd give
my right hand if I hadn't done it. It's twenty-two years ago, and I
wasn't more than a boy, and she forgave me and forgot all about it. I
have never forgotten it. I wish to God I could! 'Thalia, I don't want
you to suffer that kind of pain."

She saw the implication rather than the warning, and she burst out,
angrily, that she wasn't doing this for "pleasure"; she was doing it for
principle! It was for the salvation of her soul!

"Athalia," he said, solemnly, "the salvation of our souls depends on
doing our duty."

"Ah!" she broke in, triumphantly, "out of your own lips:--isn't it my
duty to do what seems to me right?"

He considered a minute. "Well, yes; I suppose the most valuable example
any one can set is to do what he or she believes to be right. It may be
wrong, but that is not the point. We must do what we conceive to be
our duty. Only, we've got to be sure, Tay, in deciding upon duty, in
deciding what is right,--we've got to be sure that self-interest is
eliminated. I don't believe anybody can decide absolutely on what is
right without eliminating self."

She frowned at this impatiently; its perfect fairness meant nothing to
her.

"You promised to be my wife," he went on with a curious sternness;
"it is obviously 'right,' and so it is your first duty to keep your
promise--at least, so long as my conduct does not absolve you from
it." Then he added, hastily, with careful justice: "Of course, I'm not
talking about promises to love; they are nonsense. Nobody can promise to
love. Promises to do our duty are all that count."

That was the only reproach he made--if it was a reproach--for his
betrayed love. It was just as well. Discussion on this subject between
husbands and wives is always futile. Nothing was ever accomplished by
it; and yet, in spite of the verdict of time and experience that nothing
is gained, over and over the jealous man, and still more frequently the
jealous woman, protests against a lost love with a bitterness that
kills pity and turns remorse into antagonism. But Lewis Hall made no
reproaches. Perhaps Athalia