A sudden stiffening and shrinking in her attitude made him fall back a step and look at her anxiously. Slowly, very slowly, she turned, lifting her head, until she faced him. And slowly the love-light and the trembling nearness to surrender faded out of her countenance and left it drawn with the effort by which she had forced herself once more to the point of denial, with lips compressed and gray eyes steely with resolution. “Jeff,” she began, and her voice was unsteady, “it’s not fair to either of us that you saw what I wrote. I didn’t mean to put that into my letter--I wrote it out only because my heart ached so and it seemed some relief. But I thought I’d burned it. I’m sorry it got mixed in with the other sheets. But it was a mistake, and you’ll forgive me, won’t you, dear Jeff, and you won’t feel that it was a promise?” Her voice fell away into pleading tones and she stood hesitating, poised, as if wishing him to stand aside and let her pass. With instinctive deference he stepped aside and she moved quickly to the foot of the stairs. But he sprang after her and seized her hand, exclaiming, as he drew her into the parlor, “No, Rhoda! I shall not let you ruin both our lives and break both our hearts, after that glimpse you gave me of yours!” She steadied herself for the struggle she knew must come, and suddenly felt her nerves grow firm and her brain clear, as they always did when she faced great need. She was calmer than he and more mistress of herself as she said: “I can’t say anything different to what I’ve always said, and said in that letter, that I feel to the bottom of my heart that slavery is such a wrong, such a curse, such a horrible thing that I can’t marry you because you believe in it and are a part of it.” [Illustration: “‘Don’t, Jeff, please don’t!’ she pleaded.”] He gazed at her silently a moment, and the love in his face, that had but just now been more of the body than of the soul, was transfused with admiration of her spirit. “And you can still say that to me,” he marveled in hushed accents, “after your heart has ached as it must have when you wrote those lines?” She dropped her eyes lest he see the sudden start of tears. It was a subtle undermining of her defenses, had he known it, thus to cease demanding and reveal such understanding and sympathy. Of such sort was her ideal love, and it hurt more than ever to put it from her. One hand was pressed against her heart, as if she could thus lessen the physical pain, and she said piteously, “It’s aching now, Jeff!”