re you go?"

"Natalie," he said, in despair, "I had come to try to say good-bye to
you; but I cannot, my darling, I cannot! I must see you again."

"I do not understand why you should wish to see again one like me," she
said, slowly, and the voice did not sound like her own voice. "I have
given you over to death: and, more than that, to a death that is not
honorable; and, yet I cannot even tell you that I am grieved. But there
is pain here." She put her hand over her heart; she staggered back a
little bit; he caught her.

"Natalie--Natalie!"

"It is a pain that kills," she said, wildly.

"Natalie, where is your courage? I give my life without question; you
must bear your part too."

She still held her hand over her bosom.

"Yet," she said, as if she had not heard him, "that is what they say; it
kills, this pain in the heart. Why not--if one does not wish to live?"

At this moment the door was opened, and the mother came into the room.

"Madame," said Brand, quickly, "come and speak to your daughter. I have
had to tell her something that has upset her, perhaps, for a moment; but
you will console her; she is brave."

"Child, how you tremble, and how cold your hands are!" the mother cried.

"It does not matter, mother. From every pain there is a release, is
there not?"

"I do not understand you, Natalushka?"

"And I--and I, mother--"

She was on the point of breaking down, but she held firm. Then she
released herself from her mother's hold, and went forward and took her
lover's hand, and regarded him with the sad, fearless, beautiful eyes.

"I have been selfish," she said; "I have been thinking of myself, when
that is needless. For me there will be a release--quickly enough: I
shall pray for it. Now tell me what I must do: I will obey you."

"First, then," said he, speaking in a low voice, and in English, so that
her mother should not understand, "you must make light of this affair,
or you will distress your mother greatly, and she is not able to bear
distress. Some day, if you think it right, you may tell her; you know
nothing that could put the enterprise in peril; she will be as discreet
and silent as yourself, Natalie. Then you must put it out of your mind,
my darling, that you have any share in what has occurred. What have I to
regret? My life was worthless to me; you made it beautiful for a time;
perhaps, who knows, it may after all turn out to have been of some
service, and then there can be no re