ld I allow it," she answered. "This is no time
to complicate affairs. I thank you, and I confess you have surprised me.
I did not expect this even of you. It is needless for me to say that I
feel this disgrace as you would feel it; but I understand the position
of the church, and cannot complain. If I were guilty, this treatment
would be only too lenient. And it is almost guilt to have incurred
suspicion."

"I will never be the bearer of your resignation, then,--never, Mrs.
Edgar! I wash my hands of this business!"

She smiled again. The man in his wrath seemed to have seized on a
child's weapon. He interpreted her smile, and said,--

"My position will be well understood, if another is the bearer. And I
wish it to be. I wish men to know that I have no hand in this business.
The church is a persecutor. I, her son, am ashamed of her."

"It has given me my opportunity to make a defence. And I can make none,
Mr. Muir. My great mistake was in remaining here. Ruin, however, is not
so rare a thing in these days that I should be surprised by it, even if
it overtake me."

"Ruin! Aye. What curses thicken for their heads who have brought this
upon us! Unborn millions will repeat them, and God Almighty sanction and
enforce them."

Mr. Muir paused. What arrested him? Merely the countenance of the woman
before him. If all those curses had gathered into legions of devils,
crowding, swarming, furious, armed with lash and brand, about the form
of one who represented love, joy, beauty, all preciousness to her, the
terror and the anguish looking from her face could not have been
intensified. But she said no word.

How should she speak?

As if in spite of him, and of all he had been wont to hold most sacred
and potential, in spite of church and congregation, Constitution and
country, the minister had spoken simply for humanity under oppression;
had he not earned her confidence? Did he not deserve to know at least
what real ground there was for the suspicions roused against her?

Nay, nay! When did ever Love seek deliverance at the cost of the
beloved? What woman ever betrayed to secret friend the sin of him she
loves? Let all creation read the patent facts, behind them still remains
the inviolate, sacred _arcanum_, and before it stands sentinel Silence,
and around it are walls of fire.

Not from this woman's lips should mortal ever learn she was a Rebel's
wife!

For Mr. Muir, in his present mood, it was only torture to prolon