iously felt in her exceptional genius and ability.
And there came an evening--why did he think of it now, he
wondered?--when, after a brilliant summer ball given at the beautiful
residence of a noted society woman on Long Island, he had taken Morgana
out into their hostess's garden which sloped to the sea, and they had
strolled together almost unknowingly down to the shore where, under the
light of the moon, the Atlantic waves, sunken to little dainty frills
of lace-like foam, broke murmuringly at their feet,--and he, turning
suddenly to his companion, was all at once smitten by a sense of
witchery in her looks as she stood garmented in her white, vaporous
ball-gown, with diamonds in her hair and on her bosom--smitten with an
overpowering lightning-stroke of passion which burnt his soul as a
desert is burnt by the hot breath of the simoon, and, yielding to its
force, he had caught the small, fine, fairy creature in his arms and
kissed her wildly on lips and eyes and hair. And she,--she had not
resisted. Then--as swiftly as he had clasped her he let her go--and
stood before her in a strange spirit of defiance.

"Forgive me!" he said, in low uneven tones--"I--I did not mean it!"

She lifted her eyes to his, half proudly half appealingly.

"You did not mean it?" she asked, quietly.

An amazed scorn flashed into her face, clouding its former
sweetness--then she smiled coldly, turned away and left him. In a kind
of stupor he watched her go, her light figure disappearing by degrees,
as she went up the ascending path from the sea to the house where gay
music was still sounding for dancers not yet grown weary. And from that
evening a kind of silence fell between them,--they were separated as by
an ice-floe. They met often in the social round, but scarcely spoke
more than the ordinary words of conventional civility, and Morgana
apparently gave herself up to frivolity, coquetting with her numerous
admirers and would-be husbands in a casual, not to say heartless,
manner which provoked Seaton past endurance,--so much so that he worked
himself up to a kind of cynical detestation and contempt for her, both
as a student of science and a woman of wealth. And yet--and yet--he had
almost loved her! And a thing that goaded him to the quick was that so
far as scientific knowledge and attainment were concerned she was more
than his equal. Irritated by his own quarrelsome set of sentiments
which pulled him first this way and then that, he