“Then our love can surely not be wrong. Depend upon it, that God Almighty, who sums up all the good and evil done by his children, will not judge the world with the same unequal severity as those drones of society. Surely He requires not such sacrifices from us; no, not even the wrathful, avenging Father.” His tone was one of infinite persuasion. “God understands what you are to me--youth, beauty, truth, hope and life.” “You forget your friend, my husband,” she warned. “No, I do not forget. He is a man for whom I would all but die, but I love you better than anything else.” “And that is more than he does,” she broke in, sorrowfully. “Cherokee, be mine in spirit? I plead as an innocent man pleads for justice.” “Stop!” she cried, “let me speak. You have a profound and generous soul to hear me. Let me ask you not to tempt me; we have gone already too far.” “Not too far when it is with me that you go.” “Yes, Marrion it is, unless we could go all of life’s road together. I love you, that you know, but I come to you now, begging you not to tempt me, but to help to make me strong, and to follow the road of sacrifice and duty. My heart cries out to you, but let me not hear. If you love me, prove it, and leave me.” Her voice died in a wail, it was a loving, weak soul’s despairing cry. Marrion stood for a moment immovable, then he took her hand with reverential homage. “Cherokee, you have raised all womankind in my eyes. I did love you--now I worship you. Your open frankness is so unlike the irresolute frailty, the miserable wiles of your sex. You have touched a chord in my heart that has been mute for years. To me you are a garden of roses, you have bloomed even under blight. Beholding you now, I am enabled to forget that the world is evil.” “Blessed be that influence,” she murmured, sweetly. “Yes, God’s blessing upon it,” he repeated. And he thought of what pangs her high spirit must have endured ere it had submitted to the avowal it had made. She had been honest enough to confess that she was weak--that she loved him, but that very confession was as a tower of strength to him. “Cherokee, my idol, what will you of me?” he asked, in tender manly tones. “I want you to promise, Marrion that you will always like me; let us be what human nature and worldly forms seldom allow those of opposite sexes to be--friends; having for each other that esteem which would be love if the hearts were unadulterated by clay. Your memory will be my nearest approach to happiness. I shall never be happy unless Robert reforms; then the old love and joy would come again.” There was on her face an expression, in her voice a tone, so appealing that it inspired him to say: “I will save him by my life if need be.” She looked at him with an admiring, grateful gaze: “Your friendship is even better than love.” “That is both,” he answered. “You will promise to go away at once, or I cannot live near you and without you.”