ed, and then added, more calmly: "That you should take
the vows and the veil, and stay here until death."

Greta lifted her eyes. Hugh's eyes were bent upon her.

"No, I can not. I should be false to my marriage vows," she said,
quietly.

"To be true to them is to be false to yourself, to your husband, and to
me," said Hugh.

"I love my husband," said Greta, with an eloquent glance. "To be true to
them is to be true to him."

There was a pause. Hugh Ritson's manner underwent a change. It was the
white heat of high passion that broke the silence when he spoke again.

"Greta," he said, and his deep voice had a strong tremor, "if there is
any truth in what that priest told us to-night--if it is not a dream and
a solemn mockery made to enchant or appal the simple--if there is a God
and judgment--my soul is already too heavily burdened with sins against
you and yours. I would have eased it of one other sin more black than
these; but it was not to be."

"What do you mean?" said Greta. Her face was panic-stricken.

Hugh Ritson came a step nearer.

"That your husband is in my hands--that one word from me would commit
him to a doom more dreadful than death--that if he is to be saved as a
free man, alive, you must renounce him forever."

"Speak plain. What do you mean?" said Greta.

"Choose--quick! Which shall it be? You for this convent, or your husband
for lifelong imprisonment?"

Greta's mind was in a whirl. She was making for the door in front of
them. He stepped before her.

"I parted you with a lie," he said, "but to me it was not always a lie.
I believed it once. Do you think I should have denied my self my
inheritance, and let a bastard stand in my place, if I had not believed
it?"

"What further lie is this?" said Greta.

"No matter. Heaven knows. And all I did was for love of you. Is it so
guilty a thing that I have loved you--to all lengths and ends of love? I
meant to put a hemisphere between you--to send him to Australia, and
you back home to Cumberland. What if the lie had then been outfaced? I
should have parted you, and that would have been enough."

"And now, when your revenge falls idle at your feet, you come to me on
your knees," said Greta.

"Revenge? That was but a feeble revenge," said Hugh. "He would have
learned the truth and come back to claim you. There would have been no
peace for me while he was alive and free. Do I come to you on my knees?
Yes; but it is to pray of you to save yo