hat was there for reparation? Was it anything more than the letter of
the Divine law that I had defied and broken?

My love was mine and I was his, and I belonged to him for ever. He was
going out on a great errand in the service of humanity. Couldn't I go to
be his partner and helpmate? And if there _had_ been sin, if the law of
God _had_ been broken, wouldn't that, too, be a great atonement?

Thus my heart fought with my soul, or with my instincts as a child of
the Church, or whatever else it was that brought me back and back, again
and again, in spite of all the struggles of my love, to the firm
Commandment of our Lord.

Father Dan had been right--I could not get away from that. The Reverend
Mother had been right, too--other women might forget that they had
broken the Divine law but I never should. If I married Martin and went
away with him, I should always be thinking of the falseness of my
position, and that would make me unhappy. It would also make Martin
unhappy to witness my unhappiness, and that would be the worst
bitterness life could bring.

Then what was left to me? If it was impossible that I should bury myself
in a convent it was equally impossible that I should live alone, and
Martin in the same world with me.

Not all the spiritual pride I could conjure up in the majesty and
solemnity of my self-sacrifice could conquer the yearning of my heart as
a woman. Not all my religious fervour could keep me away from Martin. In
spite of my conscience, sooner or later I should go to him--I knew quite
well I should. And my child, instead of being a barrier dividing us,
would be a natural bond calling on us and compelling us to come
together.

Then what was left to a woman in my position who believed in the Divine
Commandment--who could not get away from it? Were all the doors of life
locked to her? Turn which way she would, was there no way out?

Darker and darker every day became this question, but light came at
last, a kind of light or the promise of light. It was terrible, and yet
it brought me, oh, such immense relief!

I am almost afraid to speak of it, so weak and feeble must any words be
in which I attempt to describe that unforgetable change. Already I had
met some of the mysteries of a woman's life--now I was to meet the last,
the greatest, the most tragic, and yet the kindest of them all.

I suppose the strain of emotion I had been going through had been too
much for my physical strength, for thr