wrapped her in heavy shawls. Not senseless, lying against his
breast, the dark eyes opened once to meet his, and the pallid face
nestled a little closer to its resting place. He could not tell if the
time were long or short, before Nelly's voice broke on his ear.

'Only a comedy, instead of the tragedy which mother is arranging up at
the house!'

The half-hysterical quaver broke into the woman's refuge of tears, and
sobs with that; and Moore gave up his burden to stronger arms.

'Up at the house,' Mrs. Morris, busied with her blazing fires and
multitudinous appliances for any stage of disaster, met them with the
quiet tears that mothers learn to shed, and the reverent 'Thank God!'
that comes oftenest from mothers' lips.

And the bustle being over, he looked reality and duty straight in the
face. The man was in no sense a coward--_flinch_ was not in him. He came
out on the upper balcony two hours later, with the face of a man over
whom ten years more of life had gone heavily. A dozen steps away sat
Marguerite--the white heart of a softened glow of light. She came out at
his call quiet and stately, but with a kind of shy happiness touching
eye and cheek with light and flame. At sight of her, all the mad passion
in his heart leaped up--a groan came in place of the words he had
promised himself. He strode away with heavy, hard footfalls. Not
strange, since he was trampling Satan and his own heart under his feet.
He came back again, quickly, eagerly, as a man forcing himself forward
to a mortal sacrifice, who feels that resolution may fail. The words
that came finally were half a groan, half an imprecation, hissed through
clenched teeth.

'Three years ago, a Louisiana lady promised to be my wife. She is not
dead; the engagement is not broken.'

There were no words beyond the plain statement of facts that he had any
right to use--harsh and brutal though they seemed. Seen in the
earth-light that had broken on him with that rescuing hail, he had acted
the coward and villain. If she thought him so, he had no right to demur.

There was no need of other words. The eyes, after their first terrified
glance, had fixed themselves out on the night, and then the lids fell,
and the wondering, stunned look changed slowly into one of perfect
comprehension. Not a muscle moved. The present, leaping forward, laid
before her the future, scorched and seared, beyond possibility of bloom
again. She looked into it with just the same attitud