be a thousand times more suitable for
him. Oh, what a handsome couple they do make! And every one can see,
though they think they hide it so well, how desperately they are in love
with each other."

They moved on, little dreaming of the ruin and blight they had left
behind them.

They were scarcely out of hearing when the great cry that had been
choked back so long burst forth in a wild, piercing wail of agony that
meant the breaking then and there of a human heart. But the dance-music
inside, to which the joyous, merry feet kept time, completely drowned
it.

Dorothy had risen from her chair, and the look on her face was terrible
to behold.

"Let me quite understand it," she whispered--"let me try to realize and
grasp the awful truth: Harry Kendal, my lover, has ceased to care for
me, and is lavishing his attention, nay, more, his affection, upon
another and one who in return loves him; and they say that I should give
him up to her--I, who love him better than my own life! He is all I have
left me in my terrible affliction, and they would take even him from me
and give him to another. They said it was not right for me to cling to
him, and to burden him with a blind wife through life--that the thought
is torture to him. Oh, God in Heaven! can it be true?"

And again the angels at the great White Throne were startled with the
piercing cries of woe that broke from the girl's white lips, which once
more the dance-music mercifully drowned.

"I will go to him and confront him with what I have heard. He shall
choose between us before all the people assembled here to-night. I will
fling myself upon my knees at his feet, crying out: 'Oh, my darling! my
love! my life! tell me that the cruel rumors which I have heard are
false--that you do not hate me because--because of the awful affliction
that Heaven has seen fit to put upon me! Turn from the girl by your side
to me--to me, your promised bride! She can never love you as I do. You
are my all--my world! If I were to die to-day--aye, within this hour--my
soul could not leave this earth while you were here! I would cling to
you in life or in death!'"

With a swift motion Dorothy turned and re-entered the house, forgetful
of her blindness, and to count the steps which she had taken,
remembering only that she was undergoing the greatest trial of her life.

Swift as a fluttering swallow she hastened across the broad piazza, but
in the confusion of her whirling brain she had