akin to that of a plant which
takes root and thrives upon finding a soil adapted to it, her love had
been developed by his strong, sunny nature. She soon recognized that
it was a love such as she had never known, unlike that for her mother
or sister or any one else, and it seemed to her that it could pass
away only with herself. It was not a vague sentiment, an indefinite
longing; it was the concentrated and imperious demand of her whole
being, which, denied, left little indeed, even were the whole world
hers. Yet such were the cruel conditions of her lot that she could
not speak of it even to one whose head had been pillowed on the same
mother's breast, and the thought that it might be discovered by
its object made her turn cold with dread. It was a holy thing--the
spontaneous product of an unperverted heart--and yet she must hide it
as if it were a crime.

Above all the trouble and turmoil of her thoughts, clear and definite
amid the chaos brought into her old quiet, languid life, was
the impulse--the necessity--to conceal that which had become the
mainspring of her existence. She had not the experience of one versed
in the ways of the world. How could others--how could he--be kept in
ignorance of that of which she was so painfully and vividly conscious?
Therefore, overwhelmed with dread and a sense of helplessness, she
yielded to her first impulse to hide, in order that what seemed
inseparable from herself might be concealed.

But she knew that this seclusion could not last--that she must meet
this first and great emergency of her life in some other way. From the
strong wish to obtain safety in separation, a plan to bring it about
gradually took form in her mind. She must escape, either to live or
to die, before her secret became known; and in casting about for the
means, she at last thought of a family who had been the kindest of
neighbors in the village where her mother had died. Mr. Wayland and
his wife had been the truest and most sympathetic of friends to the
widow and her orphan children, and Madge felt that she could be at
home with them. Mrs. Wayland's prolonged ill-health had induced her
husband to try, in her behalf, the remedy of an entire change of air
and climate. Therefore they had removed, some years before, to Santa
Barbara, on the Pacific coast. The signal success of the experiment
now kindled a glimmer of hope in poor Madge. That remote city
certainly secured the first requisites--separation and