"'Can God pardon your sin to me, Heraine?'
"'I trust so, Luke,' she said feebly, 'if ever in my life I treasured you a hard thought or did you any injury.'
"'Is it no injury,' I said, 'to have lured me by a false promise from my quiet home? I have endured the torture of cities, seas, suns, and storms. Your pledge was my spur and talisman through all. But you had cheated me with a lie. You were another's already. For you I have stained my hands with blood and shut heaven against my soul!'
"'As I have an account to Settle, Luke,' she pleaded, 'I meant your happiness only. To have told you that I was wedded would have pained you. I thought to familiarize you with scenes and sounds, by making my regard an incentive to adventure. It was your mother's plan. I yielded to the deception, and believed it good."
"'It was a wicked falsehood,' I said; 'you knew the weakness of my nature—that my sensitiveness was a disease—that to cross me was to kill. You have made both of us wretched forever.'
"My cruelty was murdering her; her face grew deathly in its pallor, and she pressed her hands upon her heart.
"'Let the dead man lie between us,' I proceeded; 'it is not seemly for you to be my friend; and to me you are an ever-present accusation. We must not see each other!'
"'Oh, Luke!' she cried, falling upon her knees imploringly; 'I am a bruised thing, a-weary of the world. This silence and darkness are endeared to me. Do not send me away!'
"'You agitate me,' I said; 'let us do our penance, each in loneliness. There was a time when our sorrows were mutual; it is past; we have only to say farewell.'
"I covered my face with my hands; she touched my brow with her lips, and when the door had closed upon her sobbing I heard her footfalls making mournful music on the stairs. They rang upon the lawn, then pattered down the drive; they passed desolately out of the gate, they were lost on the highway, and then the world became blank again.