to heel, now hot, now cold, and strangling with the
fierce desire for her whom I was losing more hopelessly every moment, I
started aimlessly through the starlight, pacing the stockade like a
caged beast, and I thought my swelling heart would choke me if it broke
not to ease my breath.

So this was love! A ghastly thing, God wot, to transform an honest man,
changing and twisting right and wrong until the threads of decency and
duty hung too hopelessly entangled for him to follow or untwine. Only
one thing could I see or understand: I desired her whom I loved and was
now fast losing forever.

Chance and circumstance had enmeshed me; in vain I struggled in the net
of fate, bruised, stunned, confused with grief and this new fire of
passion which had flashed up around me until I had inhaled the flames
and must forever bear their scars within as long as my seared heart
could pulse.

As I stood there under the dim trees, dumb, miserable, straining my ears
for the messenger's return, came my cousin Dorothy in the pale, flowered
gown she wore at supper, and ere she perceived me I saw her searching
for me, treading the new grass without a sound, one hand pressed to her
parted lips.

When she saw me she stood still, and her hands fell loosely to her side.

"Cousin," she said, in a faint voice.

And, as I did not answer, she stepped nearer till I could see her blue
eyes searching mine.

"What have you done!" I cried, harshly.

"I do not know," she said.

"I know," I retorted, fiercely. "Time was all we had--a few poor
hours--a day or two together. And with time there was chance, and with
chance, hope. You have killed all three!"

"No; ... there was no chance; there is no longer any time; there never
was any hope."

"There was hope!" I said, bitterly.

"No, there was none," she murmured.

"Then why did you tell me that you were free till the yoke locked you to
him? Why did you desire to love? Why did you bid me teach you? Why did
you consent to my lips, my arms? Why did you awake me?"

"God knows," she said, faintly.

"Is that your defence?" I asked. "Have you no defence?"

"None.... I had never loved.... I found you kind and I had known no man
like you.... Every moment with you entranced me till, ... I don't know
why, ... that sweet madness came upon ... us ... which can never come
again--which must never come.... Forgive me. I did not understand. Love
was a word to me."

"Dorothy, Dorothy, what have I done!