APPLES OF SODOM.
E went away a thousand times more hopelessly entangled in the meshes of fate than ever.
He loved Helena with a passion that frightened him, so mysterious, so sudden, so exalted, so intense in its spiritual force was it.
He who said that love, to be sincere, must be of slow growth, that man was a fool.
As God said, unto the darkened world, "Let there be light" and there was light, so, unto many a slumbering heart, He has said, "Let there be love," and there was love—radiant, glorious, eternal, as is the splendor of the sun in the heavens.
So had love sprung to life in the heart of Percy Durand—a love that the waters of death could not quench.
"Never since my mother died," he whispered to his heart, "have I felt such an adoring affection bordering upon worship, as I feel for this girl. I could be any thing, do any thing, with her beside me—my guide, my friend, my mate, my wife."
Wife! Yes, that was how he thought of Helena. All his old theories and cynical beliefs fell away from him, like dead leaves from a tree, in the presence of this beautiful new love.
All his old life of license, and bachelor freedom, and secret companionship with a charming woman, seemed like the apples of Sodom to him now.