“Do I accuse you women?” he exclaimed. “Why should I! Have you not been made to match us men? The night that Lochore and I lost our way upon the moor and found refuge under the roof where she dwelt was the beginning of my instruction in life! Ah, God! The old story—I fell in love as I had fallen in friendship. It had been sweet to me to look up and feel myself protected by one like Lochore, stronger and better, as I thought, than myself. I thought it was ineffably sweet to find something so much weaker, so much smaller than I; something I could protect, something that looked up to me; brown eyes that seemed as true as they were deep—and scarlet lips that could kiss with such innocently ardent kisses....” A fresh wave of anger swept through Ellinor’s veins. There came to her an almost overpowering impulse to spring to her feet, throw away her cloak and stand forth in her scorn, in her pride of life, in her wholesome humanity. Those unknown lips, those scarlet lips ... disowned now as they were, had still power to sting her. But she sat immovable, and let jealousy and love work their torture. “You must think me mad,” cried David, with another abrupt change, “to inflict the old story upon you, the trite old story all the world knows. You know, Ellinor, you know.” He now addressed her with a personal, almost violent, directness. The matter seemed once more to lie between him and her alone. “I loved her, and she said she loved me. I was to make her my wife—my wife! Lochore mocked first, then stormed. We had our first quarrel; he swore he would prevent this madness. I was strong against him with a new strength—the strength of love against friendship.... Friendship! I forgave him, because I thought I must forgive such friendship! I left her. She wrote tender letters. I was to claim her in a few weeks. Suddenly I got a longing for her that could not be denied: a poet’s longing—the poet that lies in the heart of every lad of twenty! And then, do you need to be told how there was murder done upon that poet, murder upon the dreamer! upon his trust and his faith, upon his every hold on life? Had it been but on his wretched flesh! But that they let live!” He now bent over her, a bitter laugh upon his lips. “There was a certain walk, Ellinor, sacred to our love. All those weeks I had dreamed of it, of the primrose sky and the meeting of our lips—in my ideal way!” He laughed aloud. “I ran to it straight. I had not gone two steps when I heard there on that consecrated spot, a laugh. The sound of her laughter so much more joyous than ever she had laughed for me—the sound of her voice, high and bright. And mingling with it, in familiar jests and tenderness the sound of a man’s voice——” He stopped, and fixed her; then, once more drawing back, laughed again: “I had thought it was consecrated ground, you see!”