nd looked appealingly into hers. But, as he met the
gaze of her pure, grave eyes, a flush of shame mounted to his brow as
he realized how despicable he must appear to her in now suing so
humbly for what he had once trampled under foot as worthless.

Yet an unspeakable yearning to regain her love had taken possession of
him, and every other emotion was, for the moment, surmounted by that.

"I mean, come back to me! try to love me again! and let me, under the
influence of your sweet presence, your precepts and noble example,
strive to become the man you have described, and that, at last, my own
heart yearns to be."

His plea was like the cry of a despairing soul, who realized, all too
late, the fatal depths of the pit into which he had voluntarily
plunged.

Isabel Stewart saw this, and pitied him, as she would have pitied any
other human being who had become so lost to all honor and virtue; but
his suggestion, his appeal that she would go back to him, live with
him, associate with him from day to day, was so repulsive to her that
she could not quite repress her aversion, and a slight shiver ran over
her frame, so chilling that all her color faded, even from her lips;
and Gerald Goddard, seeing it, realized the hopelessness of his desire
even before she could command herself sufficiently to answer him.

"That would not be possible, Gerald," she finally replied. "Truth
compels me to tell you plainly that whatever affection I may once have
entertained for you has become an emotion of the past; it was killed
outright when I believed myself a deserted outcast in Rome. I should
do sinful violence to my own heart and nature if I should heed your
request, and also become but a galling reproach to you, rather than a
help."

"Then you repudiate me utterly, in spite of the fact that the law yet
binds us to each other? I am no more to you than any other human
being?" groaned the humbled man.

"Only in the sense that through you I have keenly suffered," she
gravely returned.

"Then there is no hope for me," he whispered, hoarsely, as his head
sank heavily upon his breast.

"You are mistaken, Gerald," his companion responded, with sweet
solemnity; "there is every hope for you--the same hope and promise
that our Master held out to the woman whom the Pharisees were about to
stone to death when he interfered to save her. I presume to cast no
revengeful 'stone' at you. I do not arrogantly condemn you. I simply
say as he said, '