"Morgan—you have changed! Something has happened that I do not know about! What is it?"
She put her hands on his shoulders and searched his face. A rush of doubts was making her heart beat furiously.
"I am changed! I am an entirely different man," he answered, smiling into her anxious eyes. "How could a man who was as wretched as I, and who has suddenly been shown the way to happiness, be otherwise than changed! The world has become a different place to me, Natalia; and after the trial, when I am a free man and take up my life again, it will mean so much more to me than ever before. Perhaps I shall be a little older—but we aren't children any longer, either of us, and the serious side of life had to come some day. I think what made it so hard on me was that it came so suddenly." He stopped for a moment, pressing her hands tight, then holding them to his lips. "There has been a change in you, too, Natalia," he continued, his face glowing with the love he was expressing. "I saw it keenly that night you came to me here. At first I thought your love for me was gone,—not that you were not kind and sympathetic and gentle—but in your eyes I fancied I saw more pity than love."
Morgan rose from his seat and stood before her, as if shaking off the remembrance of that hour. "It almost drove me mad that night when my imagination was let loose, and in its reflected images I saw a future in which you had forsaken me, and I was left to drift through life alone, without hope, with only the horror of a crime for companionship. It was always with me—that haunting fancy—until," his voice deepened vibrantly, "until I was shown my mistake."
"Until you were shown," Natalia repeated mechanically.
"Yes, until I was shown my happiness—by Sargent Everett."
She pressed her hand quickly to her heart. Its quick throbbing had frightened her. It was true now; she no longer felt any doubts. Her happiness and Morgan's were being builded upon the sacrifice of another. The exaltation of the thought swept through her with a great rush; a lightness, almost a dizziness, made her breath come quickly. She found herself trembling with vague, uncomprehending emotions. Then followed the quick reversal; and the throbbing life ebbed away, leaving her cold and numb.
"What did he tell you?" she heard herself asking.
Morgan looked down at her from the great height of his renewed self-confidence.
"He told me so much that I hardly know where to begin. In my utter despair, last night, when it seemed to me that I should prefer this trial to end in my death—I had reached that depth, Natalia—he came. It was the moment when I needed help most, and when I saw him standing there at the door, and looking for all the world as he used to when he would come into my room at college—I knew that he had come to help me. His whole aspect told me so, before he had said one word. It was a long time before he would let me tell him about this awful week, but when he did, it was wonderful to see how the friend disappeared in the lawyer. He asked me question after question, relentlessly, sharply, insistently, over and over again the same questions until I felt that he had forgotten what he was doing. Finally he stopped; it was after midnight. When he had risen to go, I asked him to stay longer so that I could tell him of the plan I had been formulating. I did not speak of it to you because I knew so well what your answer would be. I had decided to go away after the trial—for a year or more. I was not going to write to you nor ask you to write to me. I did not even want you to know where I was, so that when the year had passed, you would know if you still loved me—if this tragedy had made any difference in your love."