me.
There is nothing more that I can give you, absolutely nothing. I can
never be your wife; I hope, for your sake and mine, that we never meet
again."

She did not break down, or hesitate in the utterance of these words,
although there was a piteous tremble on her lips, a pathetic appeal in
her eyes. Brant stood like a statue, his face grown white. He did not
in the least doubt her full meaning of renunciation.

"You will, at least, tell me why?" It was all that would come to his
dry lips.

She sank back upon the sofa, as though the strength had suddenly
deserted her body, her eyes shaded by an uplifted hand.

"I cannot tell you. I have no words, no courage. You will learn some
day from others, and be thankful that I loved you well enough to resist
temptation. But the reason cannot come to you from my lips."

He leaned forward, half kneeling at her feet, and she permitted him to
clasp her hand within both his own. "Tell me, at least, this--is it
some one else? Is it Hampton?"

She smiled at him through a mist of tears, a smile the sad sweetness of
which he would never forget. "In the sense you mean, no. No living
man stands between us, not even Bob Hampton."

"Does he know why this cannot be?"

"He does know, but I doubt if he will ever reveal his knowledge;
certainly not to you. He has not told me all, even in the hour when he
thought himself dying. I am convinced of that. It is not because he
dislikes you, Lieutenant Brant, but because he knew his partial
revealment of the truth was a duty he owed us both."

There was a long, painful pause between them, during which neither
ventured to look directly at the other.

"You leave me so completely in the dark," he said, finally; "is there
no possibility that this mysterious obstacle can ever be removed?"

"None. It is beyond earthly power--there lies between us the shadow of
a dead man."

He stared at her as if doubting her sanity.

"A dead man! Not Gillis?"

"No, it is not Gillis. I have told you this much so that you might
comprehend how impossible it is for us to change our fate. It is
irrevocably fixed. Please do not question me any more; cannot you see
how I am suffering? I beseech your pity; I beg you not to prolong this
useless interview. I cannot bear it!"

Brant rose to his feet, and stood looking down upon her bowed head, her
slender figure shaken by sobs. Whatever it might prove to be, this
mysterious shadow of a dead m