"Le! oh, Le! I am so miserable--so miserable! Oh, Le!" she cried, looking wildly up into his eyes and then staring fixedly down upon the sea at their feet--"oh, Le! I wonder would the merciful Lord forgive me if--if----" She paused and pointed downward. Leonidas shuddered, but controlled himself. He now believed the girl to be laboring under a temporary fit of insanity. He took her hand, raised her up, and drawing her arm within his own, said, gently: "Come, dear, let me take you home to your mother." She silently assented, and he led her up the hill, through the wood to the lawn gate, and across the lawn to the house. They had not spoken a word since leaving the shore. Le took her into the house, and into the sitting room usually occupied by Mrs. Force. That lady sat, as was her custom, in her low sewing chair beside her worktable in the angle of the fireplace and the side window. She arose as they entered and looked anxiously from one to the other. Le led his companion up to her and said, in a broken voice: "She has told me all about it. And yet I do not understand it in the least. See! she wants attention." Mrs. Force received the half-fainting girl in her arms, and guided her to a large, cushioned chair, which Le hastened to push forward. When Odalite was seated and reclining against the high, cushioned back, Le lifted her hand, pressed it to his lips, and turned to leave the room. Mrs. Force followed him into the hall. "Where are you going, Le?" she inquired. "I don't know--I don't know! I feel lost! Like Adam turned out of Eden! And without my Eve--without my Eve!" he groaned. "Bear it like a man, Le! You are very young, and--there are many lovely girls in the world in your reach." "Oh, don't. Aunt Elfrida! don't! Never mind me! Go in to Odalite--she needs you." "Le, do not leave the house--at least, till you see your uncle," pleaded the lady. "Oh, no, I shall not go away at once. I shall do nothing hastily, to hurt her. I hurt her enough this morning, the Lord knows!" said the youth, with a heavy sigh. Mrs. Force looked up inquiringly. "Oh, yes," continued Le, "I behaved like a brute! I went out of my head, I think--when she first told me--and I raged at her! raged at the tender, defenseless, little creature--like the wild beast that I was!" "Oh, Le, it was natural, my poor lad!" "I was a savage! brutal! beastly! devilish!--but I was out of my mind! And she never defended herself, only cried--cried for me! I wish I had dropped dead before I spoke a word to hurt her! But the devil took me unawares, and drove me out of my senses." "I do not wonder, Le." "But there, Aunt Elfrida. Go to her! I will walk on the porch for a while." Le's appearance on the porch was the signal for such a reception, or, rather, such an ovation, as could only be seen on a Southern plantation, and upon some such occasion as the present.