"Love--love always! I loved you in Paris, when I thought hate was all you deserved from me. I waited three years. I told myself it had been only a girlish fancy--not love! I pledged myself to work for the union of these states and against the cause championed by Kenneth McVeigh and Matthew Loring; for days and nights, weeks and months, I have worked for my mother's people and against the two men whose names were always linked together in my remembrance. The thought became a monomania with me. Well, you know how it is ended! Every plan against you became hateful to me from the moment I heard your voice again. But the plans had to go on though they were built on my heart. As for the marriage, I meant to write you after I had left the country, and tell you who you had given your name to. Then"--and all of despair was in her voice--"then I learned the truth too late. I heard your words when that paper was given to you here, and I loved you. I realized that I had never ceased to love you; that I never should!" "The woman who is my--wife!" he muttered. "Oh, God!--" "No one need ever know that," she said earnestly. "I will go away, unless you give me over to the authorities as the spy. For the wrong I have done you I will make any atonement--any expiation--" "There is no atonement you could make," he answered, steadily. "There is no forgiveness possible." "I know," she said, whisperingly, as if afraid to trust her voice aloud, "I know you could never forgive me. I--I do not ask it; only, Kenneth, a few hours ago we promised to love each other always," her voice broke for an instant and then she went on, "I shall keep that promise wherever I go, and--that is all--I think--" She had paused beside the table, where he sat, with his head buried in his hands. "I give you back the wedding ring," she continued, slipping it from her finger, but he did not speak or move. She kissed the little gold circlet and laid it beside him. "I am going now," she said, steadily as she could; "I ask for no remembrance, no forgiveness; but--have you no word of good-bye for me?--not one? It is forever, Kenneth--_Kenneth_!" Her last word was almost a scream, for a shot had sounded just outside the window, and there was the rush of feet on the veranda and the crash of arms. "Go! Go at once!" she said, grasping his arm. "They will take you prisoner--they will--" "So!" he said, rising and reaching for the sword on the rack near him; "this is one of the plots you did _not_ reveal to me; some of your Federal friends!" "Oh, I warned you! I begged you to go," she said, pleadingly; again she caught his arm as he strode towards the veranda, but he flung himself loose with an angry exclamation: "Let your friends look to themselves," he said, grimly. "My own guard is here to receive them today."