w that she would have charmed them with her voice
even when hope had vanished.

The unfortunate Hazard was not precisely an Agamemnon, and would have
liked nothing better than to stop the sacrifice which seemed to him much
too closely like a triumph over himself. His own throat was the one
which felt itself in closest danger of the knife. At noon, as usual, he
came in, trying to conceal his anxiety under an appearance of
confidence, but Esther's first words routed all his forces and drove him
back to his last defense.

"I should not have let you come to-day. I ought to have written to bid
you good-by, but it was too hard not to see you once more. I am going
away."

"I am going with you," said Hazard quietly.

"No, you are not!" replied Esther. "You are to stay here and attend to
your duties. Forget me as soon as you can."

Hazard took this address very good-naturedly, and neither showed nor
felt surprise. "You have been tormented by this idea," he said, "and I
am glad now to meet it face to face. For us to part is impossible. You
and I are one. You cannot get yourself apart from me, though you may
make us both unhappy; and even if you go away forever you will still
belong to me. I could not release you if I would."

"I don't want to be released," said Esther. "If it were only for that, I
would stay with you as long as you would let me. I would do whatever you
told me, and never ask a question. But I will not be your evil genius. I
will be your good genius or nothing."

"Be my good genius then! What stands in your way?"

"I have tried and failed. Already there is not a woman in your parish
who is not saying that I shall ruin you and your career. I would rather
die than run the risk of your thinking I had done you harm."

"If I, seeing all this, am willing to take the risk, why should you ally
yourself against me with all the petty gossip of a parish?" asked
Hazard. "Such talk will stop the moment you say the word. Let me go out
now and announce our engagement! If I did not sometimes shock my parish,
I could never manage them."

"But I would rather not be made useful in that way," said Esther with a
momentary gleam of humor in her eyes. "No woman wants to be shocking.
Now I have a favor to ask of you. It is the last, and I want you to
promise to grant it."

"Not if it is to give you up."

"I want you to make it easy for me. I am trying to do right. I am so
weak and unhappy after all that has happened that i