A MAN, A WOMAN, AND SPIRITS. He did not go near her for three days. During all that time he was battling with his own soul. So strange and powerful was the impression made by the conversation of Helena, that the whole current of his life seemed changed. All his former independent course of action, which he had justified with a thousand arguments, all his selfish years of pleasure, all his Arcadian existence with Dolores, loomed up before him now as lawless and wicked. "No wonder my mother's pure spirit fled from me to the most distant borders of the spirit world," he said. "How unworthy her sweet companionship I am--and yet I might become worthy." But how could he go to Dolores, and tell her that their life together was a terrible mistake: that they must part at once, and forever? And if he did not, how could he ever hope to attain that ideal of high, noble manhood, which would alone fit him for the companionship of his mother's spirit, here or hereafter? He suffered the agonies of the damned, all those days. He shunned the streets for fear of meeting Dolores: the Club seemed hateful to him, and he remained shut in his own apartments, a prey to gloomy thoughts. And then one of those curious caprices of Fate occurred, which again compelled him to stifle the voice of his conscience. It often seems in this life, when a soul is floundering in a net-work of Sin's weaving, striving to extricate itself, that the Devil, like a great spider, comes along and spins new meshes about it. A messenger brought Percy a note from Dolores one day. He opened it hastily and read: "MY DARLING: "I am ill: threatened with a fever. No one but Lorette is with me. I am longing for you, and I am alarmed about you. You never remained so long away from me before, without sending me some message. The thought that you may be ill, and that I am not near you to minister to your needs, is maddening. Write to me, dear, and if you can, come to your sick and lonely "DOLORES." He was by her side within an hour. She reached out her arms, and pillowed her flushed face on his breast, weeping softly. "Oh, Love!" she murmured. "I have felt so lonely, so _deserted_ these last days. I think I have realized just what life would be without you: it would be an agony of desolation. I could not live." Percy's heart writhed within him, as he stroked the beautiful head and soothed her with kind words. How could he ever stab that loving heart by telling her the change that had come over him--a change as thorough as it was sudden; a change that was the dawn of a possible new life for him. "I cannot. It is too late; it would be more cruel than murder," he said to himself, and he drew Dolores into his arms, and comforted her as he would have comforted a sick child. She asked no explanation of his absence, and he made none.