Let me take
care of you. You have said you were tired of traveling--that you long
for home and rest. Come to my home--you shall have all the rest and
seclusion you wish--you shall live as you will; only let me give you the
protection of my love and my name and throw around you all the
comforting influences that I can. Forgive me if I refer to your sad
past; but only for this once. The dear one whom you have honored with
your love is gone; I do not ask you to forget him, or to violate, in any
way, the affection that belongs to him; but, since your life must be
lived out somewhere, I ask you to let it be with me. Do not allow your
sensitiveness to restrain you--do not feel that you will be 'wronging
me' as you have expressed it, 'by giving me only the ashes of your
love;' I shall be content if you will but come. Violet, will you?"

Violet was nearer loving him at that moment than she had ever been.

How grand, how noble he seemed in his utter self-abnegation--thinking
only of her and of the comfort that he might manage to throw around her
broken life!

Oh, she thought, if he was only her brother, how gladly she would go
with him and give him all the affection that a sister might bestow upon
one so worthy.

It was a great temptation as it was, for the barriers that had come
between herself and her sister, and which she knew would become stronger
and almost intolerable, if she disappointed her in her ambitious
schemes, made her feel as if it would be impossible to remain with her,
and the world seemed very desolate.

Still, to consent to become the wife of this good man, to accept all the
benefits which his position would confer upon her, to be continually
surrounded by his care and thoughtful love, seemed the height of
selfishness to her, when she had nothing but her broken life to give in
return, and she shrank from the sacred bond and the responsibility of
its obligations.

"I am afraid--it does not seem right," she faltered, yet she lifted her
eyes to him with a wistfulness that was pathetic in the extreme, and
which moved him deeply.

"Violet, come," he repeated, earnestly, as he held out his strong right
hand to her.

"I dare not," she said, "and yet----"

"You want to--you will!" he cried, eagerly, as, leaning toward her, he
clasped the small hand that lay upon the arm of her chair.

It was icy cold, and glancing anxiously into her face, he saw that she
had fainted away.

The excitement of the intervie