Then, for the first time, it struck me that, though Max was safe so long as he made no confession, for the peculiar circumstances of Harry's death left no other evidence against him, still, this confession once public (and it was, for had I not told Penelope?) his reputation, liberty, life itself, were in the hands of my sister and my father. A horror as of death fell upon me. I clung to him who was my all in this world, dearer to me than father, mother, brother, or sister; and I urged that we should both, then and there, fly--escape together anywhere, to the very ends of the earth, out of reach of justice and my father. I must have been almost beside myself before I thought of such a thing. I hardly knew all it implied, until Max gravely put me from him. "It cannot be you who says this. Not Theodora." And suddenly, as unconnected and even incongruous things will flash across one in times like these, I called to mind the scene in my favourite play, when, the alternative being life or honour, the woman says to her lover, "_No, die!_" Little I dreamed of ever having to say to my Max almost the same words. I said them, kneeling by him, and imploring his pardon for having wished him to do such a thing even for his safety and my happiness. "We could not have been happy, child," he said, smoothing my hair, with a sad, fond smile. "You do not know what it is to have a secret weighing like lead upon your soul. Mine feels lighter now than it has done for years. Let us decide: what hour to-night shall I come here and tell your father?" Saying this, Max turned white to the very lips, but still he comforted me. "Do not be afraid, my child. I am not afraid. Nothing can be worse than what has been--to me. I was a coward once, but then I was only a boy, hardly able to distinguish right from wrong. Now I see that it would have been better to have told the whole truth at once, and taken all the punishment. It might not have been death, or if it were, I could but have died." "Max, Max!" "Hush!" and he closed my lips so that they could not moan. "The truth is better than life, better even than a good name. When your father knows the truth, all else will be clear. I shall abide by his decision, whatever it be; he has a right to it. Theodora," his voice faltered, "make him understand, some day, that if I had married you, he never should have wanted a son,--your poor father." These were almost the last words Max said on this, the last hour that we were together by ourselves. For minutes and minutes he held me in his arms, silently; and I shut my eyes, and felt, as if in a dream, the sunshine and the flower-scents, and the loud singing of the two canaries in Penelope's greenhouse. Then,-with one kiss, he put me down softly from my place, and left me alone. I have been alone ever since; God only, knows _how_ alone. The rest I cannot tell to-day. CHAPTER II. HIS STORY.