Our sainted mother, who went through rivers of fire and a thousand death agonies ere death itself came; who died, at last, with a joyful smile on her face, bidding us meet her on the other shore--we do not forget how _she_ looked! Our heroic father, borne home from the battle-field, with his death wound; who bade us with his last breath to serve God and our country--we do not forget how _he_ looked! These are the images indelibly fixed in the sensitized slide of memory, while the peach-bloom face upon the boulevard, the merry face in the dance, fade as fades the glory of a flower. Jerome has suffered. Some of his youth he has left behind him. But with that youth he has left, too, much of his suffering. At this moment every feature in his facial federation of harmonious elements was lighted up with a kindling spirit of its own. Whatever the inspiration, whether intrinsically noble, or ignoble, it is to its possessor a glorious inspiration. We say noble, or ignoble; for, one man's glory may be another man's shame, and both true men. So, perhaps, no cause is great in itself, but only great in the conception of the soul who conceives it and who fights for it. Out of Jerome's presence, Mell had branded him as a being selfish, tyrannical, and incapable of long retaining a woman's love; in his presence she only knew he was the embodiment of life's supreme good. But worse than a flaming sword was now the sight of the man she loved. She dreaded the sound of his coming voice as she dreaded the trump of Doom. What would he say--he who handled words as a skilful surgeon manipulates cutting-instruments, to kill or cure--what would he say to the woman who had been untrue to her word? He said absolutely nothing. No formal salutation passed between the two. Drawing a chair directly in front of the hostess, by whom his coming was so little expected, Jerome sat down upon it and regarded the agitated face and the almost cowering form of the woman before him, in profound silence. She had dreaded his words, had she? Heavens! This wordless arraignment of her guilty self at the bar of her own conscience, her silent accuser both judge and jury, and only two wretched hearts, which ached as one, for witness, was worse than a true bill found in a crowded court of justice. A storm of angry words, a typhoon, a sorocco, a veritable Dakota blizzard of sweeping invective, would have been easy lines compared to this. She would die--Mell knew she would--of sheer shame and self-reproach, before this awful silence, which threatened to continue to the end of time, was ever broken. Would he never open his mouth and say something, no matter how dreadful? He did, at last. "Mellville," said Jerome, gently, "are you glad to see me?" "No!" passionately.