"Miss Hayley, I have waited for you to speak what I feel that you have to say. You have heard words that no betrothed woman, I suppose, can hear from her promised husband and yet retain that respect for him which should be the very foundation of the marriage-bond." "I have." The words came from her lips in tones much lower than those in which she had before spoken, and she did not even look at him as she answered. "You have heard me declare myself--I know by the face you wore but a moment since, that you have heard all this--what you hold to be the lowest and most contemptible thing on God's footstool--a _coward_." "I have. I would rather have died on the spot than heard those words from the lips of the man I have--have loved!" The words still low, and some hesitation in those which concluded the sentence. One would almost have believed, at that moment, that of the two the culprit was the down-looking and low-voiced woman, instead of the man whose godlike presence so contradicted the dastardly vice he was confessing. "I have no defence to offer," the speaker went on. "If you have heard all that I believe, no further explanation is necessary. You know the worst; and as a proud woman, with honor unspotted and beyond suspicion, you have a right to pass what sentence you choose upon my--my shame, my crime, if you will!" Perfect silence for an instant, then a broken sob from Elsie, whose face was streaming with tears denied to both the others, and who was leaning her forehead against the sharp corner of one of the columns of the piazza, apparently that the slight physical pain thus inflicted might do something to still the mental agony that raged within. Then Margaret Hayley, as if she had passed through a long struggle but conquered at last with a triumph slaying her own soul, raised her head, drew in a hard breath, shook back one of the tresses of her dark hair which had fallen over her brow, and spoke: "Do you know, Carlton Brand--I cannot call you _Mr._ Brand again, for that address is mockery after what we have been to each other--do you know what that sentence must be, in justice to myself and to you?" "I can guess it, Margaret Hayley," was the answer, the prefix changed again in imitation of her, just as she a moment before had changed it in imitating him. The incident was a mere nothing, and yet suggestive as showing how closely the two seemed to study each other, and how much of real sympathy there must after all have been between them. "I can guess it, and I will try to bear it." "You can guess it--you do guess it--separation!" said Margaret in a low voice that she could not quite render firm. "I was not mistaken--I supposed as much," he answered. "You are a proud woman, Margaret, and you could not marry a man for whom you failed to entertain respect--"