hester. "Once more I will remind you of your own words. _'The only
crime in life is failure. If the crash comes, and the pieces lie
around you, swim out to sea too far, and sink beneath the waves
forever!_' Wasn't that your advice? Not your exact words, perhaps, but
wasn't that what you told the boy who sat here and dreamed?"

Rochester shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"Youth," he said, "may be forgiven much. Manhood must accept its own
responsibilities."

Saton smiled grimly.

"Always the same," he said. "All the time you play with the truth,
Rochester, as though it were a glass ball committed into your keeping,
and yours alone. Don't you know that the one inspired period of life
is youth--youth before it is sullied with experience, youth which
knows everything, fears nothing--youth which has the eyes of the
clairvoyant?"

Rochester frowned.

"Your tongue goes glibly to-night," he remarked. "Talk to the shadows,
my friend. Lady Marrabel and I are going."

"I did not bid you come," Saton answered. "This is my spot, and my
hour. It was you who intruded."

"The fact that this is my property----" Rochester began, gently.

"Is of no consequence," Saton answered. "You may buy the earth upon
which we stand, but you cannot buy the person whose feet shall press
it, or the thoughts that rise up from it, or the words that are
breathed from it, or the hopes and passions which go trembling from it
to the skies. Go away and jog homeward behind your fat pony, but----"

"Well, sir?" Rochester asked, turning suddenly.

Saton's eyes did not meet his. They were fixed upon Pauline's, and
Pauline was as white as death.

"Take her, too, if you will," Saton said slowly. "Take her, too, if
she will go."

"I am going this instant," Pauline cried, with a sudden nervous
passion in her tone. "Come, Henry, come away. I hate this place. Come
away quickly."

Rochester caught her hand. It was cold as a stone. She was pale, and
she commenced to tremble.

"Take her," Saton said, "if she will go. Take her, because you are
strong and she is weak. Lead her by the arm, guide her as you will,
only be sure that you leave nothing with me."

He sat down upon the rock, and with folded arms looked away from
them--even as though they had not existed--across to the world of
shadows and vague places. Rochester passed his arm through Pauline's,
and led her down the hill. Her hands were cold. She seemed to lift her
feet as though they had been