Mr. Britton had withdrawn the cards from the envelope and was regarding them thoughtfully. "The receipt of those bits of pasteboard," he said, slowly, "unmanned me more than anything that has occurred in nearly a score of years. They called up long-forgotten scenes,--little pathetic, heart-rending memories which I thought buried long ago. I don't mind confessing to you, my boy, that for a while I was unnerved. It did not seem as though I could ever bring myself to hear again the music of wedding-bells and wedding-marches, to listen to the old words of the marriage service. But for the sake of one who has seemed almost as my own child I throttled those feelings and started for the mountains, resolved that no selfishness of mine should cloud her happiness on her wedding day. I came, to find, what I would never have believed possible, that my old friend would sacrifice his child's happiness, all that is sweetest and holiest in her life, to gratify his own ambition. I cannot tell you the shock it was to me. D. K. Underwood and I have been friends for many years, but that did not prevent my talking plainly with him--so plainly that perhaps our friendship may never be the same again. But it was of no avail, and the worst is, he has persuaded himself that he is acting for her good, when it is simply for the gratification of his own pride. I could not stay there; the very atmosphere seemed oppressive; so I came up here for a day or two, as I told you, to get righted." "And you came to me to be righted," Darrell said, musingly; "'Can the blind lead the blind?'" Mr. Britton was quick to catch the significance of he other's query. "Yes, John," he answered, covering Darrell's hand with his own; "I came to you for the very reason that your hurt is far deeper than mine." Under the magnetism of that tone and touch Darrell calmly and in few words told his story and Kate's,--the story of their love and brief happiness, and of the wretchedness which followed. "For a while I constantly reproached myself for having spoken to her of love," he said, in conclusion; "for having awakened her love, as I thought, by my own; but gradually I came to see that she had loved me, as I had her, unconsciously, almost from our first meeting, and that the awakening must in any event have come sooner or later to each of us. Then it seemed as though my suffering all converged in sorrow for her, that her life, instead of being gladdened by love, should be saddened and marred, perhaps wrecked, by it." "Love works strange havoc with human lives sometimes," Mr. Britton remarked, reflectively, as Darrell paused. "I was tempted at times," Darrell continued, "as I thought of what was in store for her, to rescue her at any cost; tempted to take her and go with her to the ends of the earth, if necessary; anywhere, to save her from the life she dreads."