The very purity of her adoration was pitiful to see. Marrion stood outside and watched her; wrong as it might be to stay he was tempted to bide the result and remain. Everything around was still; the wind, even, ceased to dip into the lustrous gloom of the laurels. He could scarcely hear the stream below, drawing its long ripples of star-kindled waves from the throat of the forest. Not a human sound interposed one pulse of its beating between these two silent souls. “I must, I must touch her--just to say good-bye again.” But through the gentle silence there throbbed a warning. He battled with it; the mad desire grew upon him, the stress, the self-torture was getting beyond control. Reckless inconsideration told him to enter. The palpitating misery that swayed through every wave of his blood, cried in almost an ecstacy of terror: “Go in, she is yours.” He knew he could not resist what love counseled if he remained much longer, and he hung his head for very shame. When a proud man finds out he is but a child in the midst of his strength, but a fool in his wisdom, it is humiliating to own it even to himself. While every passion held him enslaved, he felt a vague desire to escape, a yearning, almost insane, to get out from his own self. “Why should you not have her, when you love her so dearly?” the tempter asked. But he knew the voice and shrank from it. Then he murmured inwardly: “Great and good God, I turn to you,” and before he knew it, his unaccustomed lips had framed a prayer. With a feeling of renewed strength he took one last look at her and walked away. He had scarcely time to catch that midnight train. He was leaving heaven behind, but he was doing what was best for all. There was something in that, and Robert must never know what his poor services had cost him. CHAPTER XXVI. LOST FAITH. “For your own sake, if not for mine, Robert, do not begin drinking the first thing in the morning,” Cherokee pleaded. “I must, I must; my nerves are all shattered. I will stop when I have won the laurels of art,” and he poured the fiery poison into the sugared glass. “Does Marrion know breakfast is waiting?” he asked. “I suppose not.” Cherokee felt her voice trembling, she was almost certain he had gone; there was a dreariness about the place, an utter loneliness, that made her feel that she would not hear his voice that morning. Robert touched the bell, and when the servant answered, he bade her: “Tell Mr. Latham breakfast is ready.” “Mr. Latham went away in the night,” the servant answered. “I suppose he won’t be back soon, as he took a grip with him.” In sudden temper Robert cried: “You don’t mean it, has he gone home?” “I don’t know, sir, he went towards the station about a half hour before the New York train was due.” “That will do, leave us,” he ordered the maid. “Now, Cherokee, tell me why Marrion has left me?” “Mr. Latham may prefer to make his own excuse,” she answered, quietly.