hat, in him, had evoked it; that her
indefinable dread was dread of herself, of her physical
responsiveness to his nearness, of her conscious inclination for it.

Could this be she--herself--who still bent here over his written
words--this tense, hot-cheeked, tremulous creature, staring
dry-eyed at the blurring lines which cut her for ever asunder from
this self-outlawed man!

Was this letter still unburned. Had she not her fill of its
brutality, its wickedness?

But she was very tired, and she laid her arms on the desk and her
head between them. And against her hot face she felt the cool
letter-paper.

All that she had dreamed and fancied and believed and cared for in
man passed dully through her mind. Her own aspirations toward
ideal womanhood followed--visions of lofty desire, high ideals,
innocent passions, the happiness of renunciation, the glory of
forgiveness----

She sat erect, breathing unevenly; then her eyes fell on the
letter, and she covered it with her hands, as hands cover the shame
on a stricken face. And after a long time her lips moved,
repeating:

"The glory of forgiveness--the glory of forgiveness----"

Her heart was beating very hard and fast as her thoughts ran on.

"To forgive--help him--teach truth--nobler ideals----"

She could not rest; sleep, if it really came, was a ghostly thing
that mocked her. And all the next day she roamed about the house,
haunted with the consciousness of where his letter lay locked in
her desk. And that day she would not read it again; but the next
day she read it. And the next.

And if it were her desire to see him once again before all ended
irrevocably for ever--or if it was what her heart was striving to
tell her, that he was in need of aid against himself, she could not
tell. But she wrote him:

"It is not you who have written this injury for my eyes to read,
but another man, demoralised by the world's cruelty--not knowing
what he is saying--hurt to the soul, not mortally. When he
recovers he will be you. And this letter is my forgiveness."

Berkley received it when he was not particularly sober; and
lighting the end of it at a candle let it burn until the last ashes
scorched his fingers.

"Burgess," he said, "did you ever notice how hard it is for the
frailer things to die? Those wild doves we used to shoot in
Georgia--by God! it took quail shot to kill them clean."

"Yes, sir?"

"Exactly. Then, that being the case, you m