All was darkness down there; not one ray of light since I shut the door. Why did I do it? It was the fear that Aaron in his study would see me. Voices, confused and indistinct, I heard, sending bubbling words up through the sea of darkness down below. At first I did not try to hear; I listened only to the great throbbings of my own heart, until there came the sound of a woman's voice. It was eager, anxious, and pained. It asked,-- "Did he see you?" A man's voice, deep and earnest, answered,-- "No, no; hush, child!" "This is dreadful!" "But I know I was not seen. And here you are sure no one ever comes?" --and I heard a hand going over the great door down there, to find the latch. "Yes, no one ever comes but the minister's wife's sister. She takes a fancy to the dreariness, and always carries the key with her. She's away, and no one can get in." "Shall we go up higher, nearer to the window?" "No. I must wait but a moment; I have something yet to do." I heard the deep voice say,-- "Oh, woman's moments, how much there is in one of them! Will you sit on this step? But you won't heed what I have to say, I know." "I always heed you, Herbert. What have you to say? Speak quickly." "Sit here, upon this step." A moment's rustling pause in the darkness down below, and then the far-out-at-sea voice spoke again. "Do you send me away?" "Indeed you must go; it is terrible to have you here. Think, what if you had been seen!" "I know, I know; but you won't go with me?" "Why are you cruel, uselessly?" said the pleading voice of woman. "Cruel? Who? I cruel?" "What is it that keeps me? Answer me that!" "Your will is all." Silence one moment,--two,--and an answer came. "Herbert! Herbert! is it _you_ speaking to _me_? My will keeping me? Who hath sinned?" The sound of a soul in torture came eddying up in confused words; all that came to the mortal ear, listening unseen, were, "Forgive--I--I only"---- A few murmurous sounds, and then the voice that had uttered its confession in that deep confessional of a gloomy soul said, and there was almost woman's pleadingness in it,-- "When can I come again?" "I will write to you." "When will you write?" "When one more soul is gone." "Oh, it's wicked to shorten life by wishes even! but when one has done one terrible wrong, little wickednesses gather fast." Woman has a pathos, when she pleads for God, deeper than when she pleads for anything on earth. That pleading,--I can't make you hear it,--the words were,-- "Herbert! Herbert! don't you see, _won't you see_, that, if you leave the one great sin all uncovered, open to the continual attrition of a life of goodness, God _will_ let it wear away? It will lessen and lessen, until at the last, when the Ocean of Eternity beats against it, it shall go down, down into the deeps of love that no mortal line can fathom. Oh, Herbert, come out with me!--come out into this Infinity of Love!" "With you? yes, anywhere!"