them? Angels, perhaps, and sigh at what they read; and devils read them, and tear them to pieces, and laugh. But no soul interprets its fellow-soul: it cannot even interpret itself. It knows that it is no longer white, and that is all.
Sinfire has been with me; and now I am alone again. My library is cool and quiet, and the lamplight shines upon the backs of the books upon the shelves; and yonder the door opens into the laboratory, which is dark; and in these rooms my days and years have been spent; but not my life: that has been lived elsewhere. Is it immortal? It may be so; but what is immortality to me? Will it give me Sinfire?
"All the obstacles that separated us have disappeared," I said to her. "One after another, they are gone. If there is any other thing to keep us apart, it must be in you, and nowhere else. You know why I took that sin upon myself. Do you forgive it?"
"What sin?" she asked.
"Perjury."
"Oh, that!"
"Did you wish to die under a false accusation?" said I.
"How do you know it was false?" she returned.
"At any rate, I know it."
"Perhaps, then," she said, "I may have wished to save the one who was really guilty. Why should I so greatly care to live? The man who had given my life its object was gone: what had I to wait for?"
"Then you loved him still?" I exclaimed.
She gave me a strange look. "Loved him still! I never loved him. From the time I first heard his name, I hated him."
"Surely you did love him once, only too well!"
"Have you thought so ill of me as that?" she replied, smiling a moment. "I might have expected it of the judge and the jury; but I supposed your eyes were keener. If I were a man, I would believe in a miracle sooner than in the dishonor of the woman I loved. No; you are wrong. I never saw Henry Mainwaring till I met him here."
"Then why was he your enemy?" I demanded, in astonishment.
After a pause, she said, "I will tell you a little story, which will perhaps help you to understand it. A good many years ago, a gentleman, who had a wife and a little daughter, saw another woman, who was young and wonderfully beautiful. A man may love as many women as he pleases, but he can bring honor to only one, at most; to all the rest his love means disgrace. This other woman returned his love, knowing no harm; and she belonged to a people who have no social rights, and who understand love and hate, and joy and grief, but
