"I have cause." "--and ashamed of me." "I have a right to be." "Thank Heaven for that!" "If you thank Heaven for the shame you cause you are like enough to spend your life on your knees." "I deprecate your scorn, madam. Yet I cannot take back the saying." "Make it good, then!" "Why, so I will. None feel shame save when they feel responsibility. None feel responsibility for those who are neither kith nor kin save where they--" "Where they what?" flashed Elinor, turning her great angry eyes full upon him. "Save where they _love_, Mistress Calvert." It was out now and Neville felt better. Elinor clenched her hands and began an angry retort, and then all of a sudden broke down, and bending her head over the back of the high oak chair, stood sobbing silently. "I pray you be angry," pleaded Neville; "your wrath was hard to bear; but 'twas naught to this." "Oh, yes," answered Elinor between her sobs, "it is much you care either for my anger or your grief, that the first proof you give of your boasted love is to offend those whom I hold in affection and reverence." "'Twas he provoked me to it," answered Neville, sullenly, "with his tales of my friend yonder, as honest a fellow as walks the earth. Is a man to sit still and listen in silence to a pack of lies told about his friend?" "Say no more!" commanded Elinor. "I see a man is bound to bear all things for the man to whom he has professed friendship--nothing for the woman to whom he has professed love." There was little logic in the argument, but it made its mark, for it was addressed not to the mind but to the heart. "Forgive me!" cried Neville--which was by far the best thing he could have said. If a woman has anything to forgive, the granting of pardon is a necessity. If she has nothing to forgive, it is a luxury. "I do," she murmured. "Perhaps I was rougher of manner than need was." "Yet 'twas but nature." "Yes, but nature must be held in check." Thus did these inconsistent beings oppose each other, each taking the ground occupied a few minutes since by the other, and as hot for the defence as they had been but now for the attack. Neville seized Elinor's hand and kissed it passionately; then snatching up his hat and cloak he exclaimed, "I will go after Mohl and make my peace. Henceforth I swear what is dear to you shall be held at least beyond reproach by me." Elinor turned upon him such a glance that he scarcely dared look upon her lest he be struck blind by the ecstasy of his own soul. "At last!" he whispered as he passed out into the night. Was it luck or fate that guided him? Who shall say? Luck is the pebble on which the traveller trips and slides into quicksands or sands of gold. Fate is the cliff against which he leans, or dashes himself to death. Yet the pebble was once part of the cliff. CHAPTER III BLESSING AND BANNING "Mother! Moth-_er_!"