And a low sigh of gladness heaved her breast. "A terrible temptation has come to me, Dorian. We love each other so well that life apart would be worse than death. And yet--yet--we must part. Oh, Dorian, let us foil our malignant fate. Let us die together." Surely she must be going mad to talk in this strange fashion when there was nothing that could come between their wedded hearts, nothing that could keep them apart. He spoke to her soothingly, tenderly, but she only became more wildly agitated. "Do you think that I talk strangely?" she cried. "Oh, Dorian, I have heard and read of lovers who died in each other's arms rather than live apart. Let us follow their example. A drop of poison--poison that will kill easily, you know--and, locked in each other's arms, we may drift together--always together, darling--into heaven or hell, or whatever home God gives to reckless, broken-hearted lovers. What say you, Dorian? Shall it be so?" And she gazed wildly into his horrified face. Dorian gazed in mingled grief and horror at the beautiful girl. Surely she must be mad, he thought. Then his heart sank. Had her love turned from him in their long months of separation? Dorian had a passionately jealous nature, and the fear of Nita's fickleness once admitted to his mind, caught fire and burned like a devouring flame. The girl's eager, beseeching eyes beheld all at once a strange change pass over his fair, handsome face, and, rising, he pushed her from him, crying out angrily: "I understand you, Nita. In the months of our separation you have wearied of me. Do not deny it, for I will not listen to your protestations. A moment ago I thought you must be mad, now I perceive that there is method in your madness. You chafe at the tie that binds us together. You would fain be free, so you pretend this baseless fear of your guardian. Fickle heart, you have wrecked my life! I adored you, but you found my love only a weariness. Well, take your freedom! I go, never to molest you again." The white, crouching figure lifted a pallid, woful face, and moaned: "Oh, Dorian, will you leave me? Must I die alone?" "Die!" the husband sneered angrily. "No, you will live to make some other fool happy a while, as you did me, then throw him over in this heartless fashion!" All Dorian's old cynical distrust of woman's love was returning, supplemented by jealous agony too deep for words. It seemed to him that Nita was simply playing a part, pretending this unreasoning dread of her guardian's anger. "Dorian, my love, forgive my weakness!" pleaded Nita wildly; but his eyes flashed back only a limitless wrath and scorn. "Forgive you! no--not while life lasts! But--farewell forever!" Then the door opened and closed--Dorian was gone in anger, and Nita was alone with her despair, her heart breaking with its heavy burden.