"I wish you had dealt me my death-blow. It were a merciful one compared with this. No, you don't understand me at all. You have portrayed me as a vile monster. Because you cannot keep your engagement with a man you never truly loved, you inflict the torments of hell on the man you do love, and whom Heaven meant you to love. Great God! you are not married to Gilbert Hearn. Have not engagements often been broken for good and sufficient reasons? Is not the truth that our hearts almost instantly claimed eternal kindred a sufficient cause? I watched and waited that I might know whether you were his or mine. I did not seek to win you from him after I knew--after I remembered. But when I knew the truth, you _were_ mine. Before God I assert my right, and before His altar I would protest against your marriage to any other." She sank down on the arbor seat, white and faint, but made a slight repellent gesture. "Yes, I'll go," I said, bitterly; "and such a scene as this might well cause a better man than I to go to the devil;" and I strode away. But before I had taken a dozen steps my heart relented, and I returned. Her face was again buried in her right arm and her left hand hung by her side. I took it in both of my own as I said, gently and sadly: "Emily Warren, you may scorn me--you may refuse ever to see my face again; but I have dedicated my life to your happiness, and I shall keep my vow. It may be of no use, but God looketh at the intent of the heart. Heathen though I am, I cannot believe he will let the June day when we first met prove so fatal to us both: the God of whom Mrs. Yocomb told us wants no harsh, useless self-sacrifice. You are not false, and never have been. Mrs. Yocomb is not more true. I respect and honor you, as I do my mother's memory, though my respect now counts so little to you. I never meant to wrong you or pain you; I meant your happiness first and always. If you care to know, my future life shall show whether I am a gentleman or a villain. May God show you how cruelly unjust you are to yourself. I shall attempt no further self-defence. Good-by." She trembled; but she only whispered: "Good-by. Go, and forget." "When I forget you--when I fail in loving loyalty to you, may God forget me!" I replied, and I hastened from the garden with as much sorrow and bitterness in my heart as the first man could have felt when the angel drove him from Eden. Alas! I was going out alone into a world that had become thorny indeed. As I approached the house Mrs. Yocomb happened to come out on the piazza. I took her hand and drew her toward the garden gate. She saw that I was almost speechless from trouble, and with her native wisdom divined it all.