akness; she had dropped tears of love and sorrow
over him.

At that thought new shame, new grief, new remorse swept in upon his
soul.

He sprang upon his feet, and in doing so dropped a little white drift
upon the ground. He stooped and picked it up.

It was the fine white handkerchief that on first waking up he had
plucked from his face. And he knew by its soft thin feeling and its
delicate scent of violets, Bee's favorite perfume, that it was her
handkerchief, and she had spread it as a veil over his exposed and
feverish, face. That little wisp of cambric was redolent of Bee! of her
presence, her purity, her tenderness.

It seemed a mere trifle; but it touched the deepest springs of his
heart, and, holding it in both his hands, he bowed his humbled head upon
it and wept.

When a man like Ishmael weeps it is no gentle summer shower, I assure
you; but as the breaking up of great fountains, the rushing of mighty
torrents, the coming of a flood.

He wept long and convulsively. And his deluge of tears relieved his
surcharged heart and brain and did him good. He breathed more freely; he
wiped his face with this dear handkerchief, and then, all dripping wet
with tears as it was, he pressed it to his lips and placed it in his
bosom, over his heart, and registered a solemn vow in Heaven that this
first fault of his life should also, with God's help, be his last.

Then he walked forth into the starlit garden, murmuring to himself:

"By a woman came sin and death into the world, and by a woman came
redemption and salvation. Oh, Claudia, my Eve, farewell! farewell! And
Bee, my Mary, hail!"

The holy stars no longer looked down reproachfully upon him; the
harmless little insect-choristers no longer mocked him; love and
forgiveness beamed down from the pure light of the first, and cheering
hope sounded in the gleeful songs of the last.

Ishmael walked up the gravel-walk between the shrubbery and the house.
Once, when his face was towards the house, he looked up at Bee's back
window. It was open, and he saw a white, shadowy figure just within it.

Was it Bee?

His heart assured him that it was; and that anxiety for him had kept her
there awake and watching.

As he drew near the house, quite uncertain as to how he should get in,
he saw that the shadowy, white figure disappeared from the window; and
when he went up to the back door, with the intention of rapping loudly
until he should wake up the servants and gain adm