course you didn't! But what else would
it be? O Josephine! don't I know you didn't mean it? Didn't I tell
you so? But I want you to go farther. I want you to put away forever
the _feeling_. I want to move and stand between you and it, and
say--whatever it costs me to say it--'God forbid!' I do say it; I say
it now. I can't say more; I can't say less; and somehow,--I don't know
how--wherever you learned it--I've learned it from you."

Zosephine opened her lips to refuse; but they closed and tightened
upon each other, her narrowed eyes sent short flashes out upon his,
and her breath came and went long and deep without sound. But at his
last words she saw--the strangest thing--to be where she saw it--a
tear--_tears_--standing in his eyes; saw them a moment, and then could
see them no more for her own. Her lips relaxed, her form drooped, she
lifted her face to reply, but her mouth twitched; she could not speak.

"I'm not so foolish as I look," he said, trying to smile away his
emotion. "If the State chooses to hunt him out and put him to trial
and punishment, I don't say I'd stand in the way; that's the State's
business; that's for the public safety. But it's too late--you and
Bonnyventure have made it too late--for me to help any one, least of
all the one I love, to be revenged." He saw his words were prevailing
and followed them up. "Oh! you don't need it any more than you really
want it, Josephine. You mustn't ever look toward it again. I throw
myself and my love across the path. Don't walk over us. Take my hand;
give me yours; come another way; and if you'll let such a poor excuse
for a teacher and guide help you, I'll help you all I can, to learn to
say 'forgive us our trespasses.' You can begin, now, by forgiving me.
I may have thrown away my last chance with you, but I can't help it;
it's my love that spoke. And if I have spoiled all and if I've got to
pay for the tears you're shedding with the greatest disappointment of
my life, still I've had the glory and the sanctification of loving
you. If I must say, I can say,

''Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.'

Must I? Are you going to make me say that?"

Zosephine, still in tears, silently and with drooping head pushed her
way across the stile and left him standing on the other side. He sent
one pleading word after her:

"Isn't it most too late to go the rest of the way alone?"

She turned, lifted her eyes to his for an ins