"Millicent, you will not leave me without a word? You must not go out into the storm; I will leave you here alone, if you wish, until the rain is over. Do not be so cruel as to doubt me, dear one."
He stopped, for his words had made her tremble. She feared him no longer, and with a little sigh laid her hand in his and suffered him to lead her into the room. The artist placed his visitor in a great chair, and busied himself in making a fire on his cold hearth.
"Now this is more cheerful, fair lady, is it not?" he cried, in a pleasant voice. "And pray tell me what brought you to my lonely dwelling."
"I had always wanted to see your tower, Graham; and this morning they all went to San Francisco for the day, and I thought I would ride over and look at it from the outside. I found old John airing the room, and accepted his invitation to rest here for half an hour before riding home. He came up just now to tell me that it was going to rain, but as he thought it would be only a shower he had put my horse under shelter. This is how I came here; and now tell me what brought you so unexpectedly from town."
"I cannot tell, white one. Your will, perhaps."
"Nay, friend, that has never swayed thee one hair's-breadth from thine appointed course."
He shook his head sadly, and looked out of the window. She did not know--it was better for her perhaps that she never should know--how great an influence she had wielded over his life. She did not know that for her, faith and youth had bloomed in his heart when he had thought them dead. Her untruth was killing them, and their death-agony had shaken and worn him cruelly. She thought him hard and relentless. It might be easier for her to dull the pain in her heart, with this consciousness of injury received. He would never tell her of the irreparable wrong she had done him. If he was not forgiving he was magnanimous. No word of reproach should pass his lips.
Outside the rain was pouring down, but less steadily; the patter of the drops sounded more and more lightly on the window-panes. The shower would not long continue. Graham took note of the clearing sky, and sighed heavily. With all her faults he loved her; the tower would be lonelier than ever when she had flitted from it like a sprite of the rain-storm. The great trees outside lifted up their branches with a mighty wailing, echoing his sigh; and Millicent, as if conscious that love was pleading against pride in that strong heart which had never learned the lesson of forgiveness, turned her white, appealing face towards him. The man's being had been swept that day with fiery impulses from the first moment of consciousness. Passionate love, pity, scorn, and anger had in turn written their impress on his mobile face. He came close to her side, and taking both her hands in his, knelt at her side:
"O Millicent, Millicent! could he not have spared you? We could have loved each other so truly! Poor child, poor child! What fiend was he to have betrayed you! But now it can never be, never, never, never!" The words rang out drearily, the death-knell of all that had made life beautiful to them both. The pale girl sat motionless, speechless, her eyes dark with horror, her hands nerveless in his passionate grasp. Tears fell upon those white fingers which he had so often kissed,--cruel tears wrung from the bruised heart of the man she loved; tears that she had no power to check, tears that had their source in her own sin. In that hour of agony, if remorse may in aught atone for error, Millicent must have been forgiven of the angels. The proud man knew how to suffer, but he could not forgive. He arose and dashed the tears from his eyes; they had cost him mortal pain.
The rain was over, the gray sky had cleared; and Millicent, like a gray shadow, slipped from the tower, leaving her lover alone, with the mocking sunlight shining on his dark, tear-stained face.