look upon your face again. If you cannot trust
me, let us part forever."

They were now very near the house, very near a large tree, which had a
rustic bench leaning against it. Its branches swept against the fence
which enclosed Miss Thusa's bleaching ground. The white arch of the
bridge spanned the shadows that hung darkly over it. Mittie drew away
her arm from Clinton and sank down upon the bench. She felt as if the
roots of her heart were all drawing out, so intense was her anguish.

Clinton going away--probably never to return--going, too, cold, altered
and estranged. It was in vain he breathed to her words of love, the
loving spirit, the vitality was wanting. And this was the dissolving of
her wild dreams of love--of her fair visions of felicity. But the
keenest pang was imparted by the conviction that it was her own fault.
He had told her so, dispassionately and deliberately. It was her own
evil temper that had disenchanted him. It was her own dark passions
which had destroyed the spell her beauty had wrapped around him.

What the warnings of a father, the admonitions of friends had failed to
effect, a few words from the lips of Clinton had suddenly wrought. He
had loved. He should love her once more--for she would be soft and
gentle and womanly for his sake. She would be kind to Helen, and
courteous to all. This flashing moment of introspection gave her a
glimpse of her own heart which made her shudder. It was not, however,
the sunlight of truth, growing brighter and brighter, that made the
startling revelation; it was the lightning glare of excitement glancing
into the dark abysses of passion, fiery and transitory, leaving behind a
deeper, heavier gloom. Self-abased by the image on which she had been
gazing, and subdued by the might of her grief, she covered her face with
her hands and wept the bitterest tears that ever fell from the eyes of
woman. They were drops of molten pride, hot and blistering, leaving the
eyes blood-shot and dim. It was a strange thing to see the haughty
Mittie weep. Clinton sat down beside her, and poured the oil of his
smooth, seductive words on the troubled waves he had lashed into foam.
Soft, low, and sad as the whispers of the autumn wind, his voice
murmured in her ear, sad, for it breathed but of parting. She continued
to weep, but her tears no longer flowed from the springs of agony.

"Mittie!" A sterner voice than that of Clinton's breathed her name.
"Mittie, you must come in,