"Dey des growed apaht," said the old negro "mammy," who was with them during those two years. "Seemed to des tech each other like mahbles at a single point, stade of meltin' togedder lak two drops of watah runnin' down a window pane. Mars' David, he done went he own way, drinkin', gamblin' and cussin'; he lak a madman when he baby die. He seem skeered when he see Miss Pepeeta. She look at him wid her big black eyes full of wonder and s'prise, stretch out her li'l han's, and when he run away or struck her, she des go out to the li'l baby's grave, creeping along lak a shadder through the gyahden, soft lak and still. Dar she des set down all alone and sigh lak de breeze in de ole pine tree. Some days she gone away all alone and de brack folks say she wanner all aroun' in de woods. When Sunday come, she des slip into de churches lak a li'l mouse and nibble up de gospel crumbs and den run away before de priests cotch her. Dark days dose, in de ole Ballantrae mansion! And den come de night when dey pahted. You done heah about dat?" The old colored mammy was right. "They just grew apart," as it was inevitable that they should. Perfect self-manifestation is the true principle and law of love, and when a guilty secret comes between two lovers, suspicion and fear inevitably result. They become incomprehensible to each other. David's secret preyed upon him night and day like that insect which, having once entered the brain of an elk, gnaws ceaselessly at it until the miserable victim's last breath is drawn. While he retained for Pepeeta a devotion which tormented him with its intensity, his guilt made him tremble in her presence. He shuddered when he approached her, like a worshiper who enters a shrine with a stolen offering. Instead of calming and soothing him as she would have done had he only suffered some misfortune instead of committing a sin, she filled him with an unendurable agitation. If the nerves are diseased, a flute can rasp them as terribly as a file. As for Pepeeta, she must have been bewildered by this phenomenon which she could not possibly comprehend, for while she saw her lover swayed from his orbit she could not see the planet which produced the disturbance. Feeling that he had not given her his full confidence she resented his distrust, and as his melancholy and irritability increased, withdrew more and more into herself, and in that solitude sought the companionship of God. It was a frightful discipline; but she was sanctified by it. Day by day she became more patient, gentle and resigned, and in proportion as she grew in these graces, her lover's awe and fear increased, and so they drifted farther and farther apart. Such relationships cannot continue forever, and they generally terminate in tragedy.