ke the ordinary heart stand still. Alfred's
burned with the same meaning at this moment, and as I noted his manner,
which was elevated, almost godlike, I realized the difference in our
heredity and how natural to him were the sacrifices for which my mind and
temper were as naturally unprepared. With difficulty I asked him to
explain himself, and it was with terror that I listened when he did.
He may have been made to ask, but I was not made to hear such words. He
saw my inner rebellion and stopped in mid-harangue. He has never forgiven
me the disappointment of that moment. I have never forgiven him for
making me sign away my independence, my holdings, and my life to a Cause
I did not thoroughly understand."

"Your life?" echoed Ransom, roused to involuntary expression by this
word.

"Surely not your life," echoed the lawyer, with the slow credulity of the
matter-of-fact man.

"I have said it," she murmured, her head falling on her breast. At which
token of weakness, Hazen stirred and took the words from her mouth.

"The organization," said he, "is a secret one and its code is
self-sacrifice. To the band of noble men and women, of whose integrity
and far-reaching purpose you can judge little from the whinings of a
love-sick girl, life and all personal gratifications are as dust in the
balance against the preservation and advancement of universal happiness
and the great Cause. I thought my sister, young as she was, sufficiently
great-minded to comprehend this and sufficiently great-hearted to do the
society's bidding with joy at the sacrifice. But I found her lacking,
and--" He stopped and almost lost himself again, but roused and cried
with sudden fire, "Tell what I did, Georgian."

"You took my duty on yourself," she conceded, but coldly. "That was
brotherly; that was noble, if you had not exacted a vow from me in
return, destined to lay waste my whole life. Released from this one great
duty, I was to hold myself ready to fulfil all others. At the lift of a
hand--a finger--I was to leave whatever held me and go after the one who
beckoned in the name of the Cause. No circumstances were to be
considered; no other human duty or affection. If it were to enter upon a
fuller and more adventurous life, well and good; if it were to encounter
death and the cessation of all earthly things, that was well too, and a
good to be embraced with ardor. Obedience was all, and obedience at a
mere signal! I took the oath and then--"