thing is sure: In the position in which you have placed me I must remain until the thing for which I am standing has been accomplished—however long that takes—and if the wrong you have done to me confers any obligation upon you, it is to keep your lips sealed till I give you leave to open them."
Miss Dounay, more humbled by this steadfast magnanimity of soul which could refuse vindication when it was offered than awed by the sudden force of self-assertion which Hampstead manifested, looked her submission.
"Man!" she exclaimed impulsively, seizing both his hands for an instant. "I revere you. You are not the flesh I thought. You have altered greatly. Yours was not a pose. It is genuine. I am reconciled a little to my loss. You are not mine because I was not worthy to be yours!"
Hampstead made a deprecating, repressive gesture.
"Let me finish," she protested. "I am even less humiliated. The thing required to charm you was a thing I did not possess!"
"Beauty is a great possession," Hampstead smiled. "I have been and am sensible to it. I was sensible to your beauty to the last. The woman I love is beautiful."
"The woman you love!" Marien's whole manner changed. Her face took on the tigerish look. "There is some one else then? At least," she added reproachfully, "you might have spared me this."
"It was necessary," the minister replied quietly, "if we were really to understand each other."
The gravity of the man's tone, as well as some subtle recovery within herself, checked the tigerish impulse. Swiftly it gave way to pain and humility again.
"You—you are to marry?" she faltered weakly.
"No," he replied, with ineffable sadness. "This—"
