Morris felt keenly the awkwardness of his position, but he could offer no explanation then. He could not speak with those fiery eyes upon him, and he sat erect in his chair, while Katy talked of Silverton, until her voice grew very faint, ceasing at last as she fell into a second sleep, heavier, more death-like, than the first. Something in her face alarmed Morris, and in spite of the eyes watching him he bent every energy to retain the feeble pulse, and the breath which grew shorter with each respiration. “Do you think her dying?” Wilford asked, and Morris replied, “The look about the mouth and nose is like the look which so often precedes death.” And that was all they said until another hour went by, when Morris’s hand was laid upon the forehead and moved up under the golden hair where there were drops of perspiration. “She is saved! thank God, Katy is saved!” was his joyful exclamation, and burying his face in his hands, he wept for a moment like a child. On Wilford’s face there was no trace of tears. On the contrary, he seemed hardening into stone, and in his heart fierce passions were contending for the mastery. What did Katy mean by sending for Morris to take her away? Did she send for him, and was that the cause of his being there? If so, there was something between the cousins more than mere friendship. The thought was a maddening one. And, rising slowly at last, Wilford came round to Morris’s side, and grasping his shoulder, said, “Morris Grant, you love Katy Cameron.” Like the peal of a bell on the frosty air the words rang through the room, starting Morris from his bowed attitude, and for an instant curdling the blood in his veins, for he understood now the meaning of the look which had so puzzled him. In Morris’s heart there was a moment’s hesitancy to know just what to answer—an ejaculatory prayer for guidance—and then lifting up his head, his calm blue eyes met the eyes of black unflinchingly as he replied, “I have loved her always.” A blaze like sheet lightning shot from beneath Wilford’s eyelashes, and a taunting sneer curled his lip as he said, “_You_, a _saint_, confess to this?” It was in keeping with human nature for Wilford to thrust Morris’s religion in his face, forgetting that never on this side the eternal world can man cease wholly to sin; that so long as flesh and blood remain, there will be temptation, error, and wrong, even among God’s children. Morris felt the sneer keenly; but the consciousness of peace with his Maker sustained him in the shock, and with the same tone he had at first assumed, he said, “Should my being what you call a saint prevent my confessing what I did?” “No, not the confession, but the fact,” Wilford answered, savagely. “How do you reconcile your acknowledged love for Katy with the injunctions of the Bible whose doctrines you indorse?”