of his engagement; and here he paused.

"Do not try to tell me any of this part, John, my dear lover," she said.
"I know the standard of honor in a man is that he must never give away
the absent woman, and I understand--you need not put anything into
words. I knew you were unhappy and coerced. I never for a moment have
doubted your love. You were surrounded with strong and cruel forces, and
all my tenderness could not reach you quite, to protect you as it should
have done, because I was so full of foolish anguish myself. Dearest, now
only tell me the end and the facts that I must know."

He held her close to him in thankfulness, and then went on to speak of
the shame and degradation he had suffered for his weakness; the
drawn-out days of aching wonder at her silence, and finally the news of
his Uncle Joseph Scroope's death and the fortune that would come to him,
and how this fact had tied and bound his hands.

"But it has grown to such a pass," he said, "that I had come to
breaking-point, and now I can never go back to her again. I have found
you, my one dear love, and I will never leave you more."

Halcyone shook her head sadly, and asked him to listen to her side. And
when he knew that her leaving La Sarthe Chase had been brought about
because of his letter to Cheiron having been posted from London, so that
she hoped to find him there, it added to his pain to feel that, even in
this small turn of events, his action had been the motive force.

But, as she went on, her pure and exquisite love and perfect faith
shining through it all seemed to draw his soul out of the mire in which
it had lain. And at last they knew each other's stories and were face to
face with the fateful moment of to-day, and he exclaimed gladly:

"My darling, now nothing else matters--we will never, never part again."

Then, as he looked into her eyes, he saw that not gladness but a solemn
depth of shadow grew there, and he clasped both her hands. A cold agony
chilled his whole being. What, O God, was she going to say?

"John," she whispered, all the tenderness of the angels in her gentle
voice as she leaned and kissed the silver threads in his dark hair.
"John, do you remember, long ago when we spoke of Jason and Medea, and
you asked me the question then, Must he keep his word to her even if she
were a witch?--and I told you that was not the point at all: it was not
because she was or was not a witch, but because it was _his
word?_"--Here h