He sat down beside her and then he buried his face in his hands, letting his cap fall; and all the pent-up misery and anguish of the past weeks seemed to vibrate in his voice as he murmured: "Ah, God!--my love!" Her soft eyes melted upon him in deepest tenderness and sorrow. To see him so pale and shattered, so changed from the splendid lover she had known! But he was there--beside her--and what mattered anything else? She longed to comfort him and tend him with fond care. Had he been the veriest outcast he would ever have found boundless welcome and solace waiting for him in her loving heart. "John!" she whispered, and put out gentle fingers and caressed his hair. He shivered and let his hands fall from his haggard face. "Darling," he said, "I am not worthy to touch the hem of your garment. Why do you not turn from such a weakling and brute?" "Hush! Hush," she exclaimed, aghast. "You must not speak so of yourself. I love you always, as you know, and I cannot hear him whom I love abused." And now he looked into her eyes while he took her slender hand, and there he saw the same wells of purity and devotion brimming with divine faith and tenderness that he had last seen glistening with happy love. He folded her to his heart; the passionate emotion each was feeling was too deep, too sacred for words; and then their eyes streamed with scorching tears. They sat thus close for some seconds. The thirst and hunger of all these days of rack and anguish must be assuaged before either could talk. But at last she drew a little back and looked up into his face. "John," she said softly, "I read in an English paper a week ago that your wedding was fixed for the seventh of October--my birthday. Is it the truth?" He clasped his hands in agony. "It can never now be so," he said. "I cannot, I will not go through with it. Oh, Halcyone, my darling one, you would pity me, although you would despise me, if you knew--" "I could never despise you," she answered, nestling once more in his arms. "John, for me nothing you could do would make any difference--you would still be my love; and if you were weak I would make you strong, and if cold and hungry, I would feed and comfort you, and if wicked, I would only see you good." "Oh, my dear, my dear," he said, "you were always as an angel of sweetness. Listen to the whole degrading story, and tell me then of that which I must do." She took one of his hands and held it in both of hers; and it was as if some stream of comfort flowed to him through their soft warm touch and enabled him to begin his ugly task.