“David Lindsay, I am a lost spirit—an evil spirit. I cannot help that. I have treated you unpardonably. I cannot help that, either—I——” “Do not reproach yourself, dear. There is no thought in my heart that reproaches you,” he answered, gently, as he stood with his back to the window and with his eyes cast down, so that she should not see the trouble that he could not entirely banish from his face. “Ah, but I do and must. I feel how wickedly, yes, how basely I have acted towards you, David Lindsay, and am still acting, and must still act; but I cannot help it! I cannot help anything. We must part, David Lindsay.” “I know it, dear,” he answered, in as steady tones as he could command, for he knew her sympathetic nature, and knew how much she would suffer from compassion if she should see him suffer. “I know we must part. It would be scarcely natural, scarcely possible, that you should love me, to live with me. The ceremony of this morning must go for nothing, so far as I am concerned, but just this—to be a shield and defence about you, to protect you from your guardian’s suit and from your own heart’s weakness—that is all. When you are older and stronger, and able to do without it, the empty ceremony of this morning can be set aside, annulled—for, Gloria, the marriage rites, so sacred between souls that are already one, was but an idle and empty ceremony between you and me, and is good for nothing but a temporary defence to your helplessness. It has given me a husband’s right to protect you before the world, Gloria, but I shall use it only as a brother. As a brother, I will escort you to your own home, Gloria, and establish you there.” “And then?” she inquired, in a voice scarcely above her breath. “Then, dear, I will bid you good-bye, when I see you safe.” CHAPTER XIX LOVE WITHOUT SELF-LOVE Stand up! Look below! It is my life at thy feet I throw, To step with into light and joy! Not a power of life but I’ll employ— BROWNING. “Gryphynshold! Take me to Gryphynshold! that is the most remote of all the manors left me by my father. Take me there, for I wish to go as far as possible from all the people I ever knew before!” said Gloria, in reply to David Lindsay’s suggestion that he should convey her to some one of her houses as to a place of refuge. They were still sitting together, where we left them, in the private parlor of the hotel, on the afternoon of the day of their marriage. They were now conversing in a quiet and friendly manner on the subject of their approaching departure, for they had resolved to leave Washington the same evening. Gloria was much more composed now than she had ever been since the hour of her marriage; for David Lindsay had assured her that he should never presume on the position she had given him, even to enter her presence uninvited.