"But we came to the parting of the ways before, Barbara," I said; "there can be no going back now. God has been very good to me: I might never have seen you again; I might have died that shameful death twenty years ago. But I am a felon; I am branded with the brand of Cain; there is blood on my hands." "Spilled for my sake!" she cried quickly, taking my hands, as she had done once before, and putting her lips to them. "And you lied to me, Charlie; you did not kill Olivant." "I did not kill Olivant," I said; "but I am guilty, in that I set out to do it. Some one forestalled me: some one who has died a violent death, and paid that penalty. But that, too, was some one who loved you, in however poor a fashion. It was Jervis Fanshawe." We talked there for a long time in the woods, and at last it seemed to me that the moment had come when I must part from her. For I would not link my life with hers; on that point I was resolute. Yet she clung to me, and told me what was in her heart. "Years ago, Charlie, when I knew that they would not kill you, but that you must live out your life in bitter servitude for what you had done for me, I made up my mind that there was a duty before me, and that I was called to it inevitably. It seemed to me then that I must consecrate what was left of my life to you, and to the memory of you; your love for me had been so great a thing that in a sense I belonged to you, if only in spirit. Dear, you came back to me wonderfully from out of your prison; you fought for me again; you were ready to lay down your life for that other Barbara, who was like the Barbara you had loved. I am lonely now--lonely and unknown; do not send me away from you!" "I am so poor a thing for any woman to cling to," I said pitifully. "I have been down to the depths; I am a thing of poverty, and shame, and degradation." "You are the man I love," she said, putting her arms about me. "There is a great world waiting for us--a world of sunshine, and life, and laughter; you shall learn to forget all the horror through which you have passed. Charlie, I took your name once--glad and proud to bear it; let me take it now, and keep it to the end." * * * * * I have set down here the record of my poor life, so far as I have lived it; yet it is as a slate, crowded with the awkward writing of a child, and much of it obliterated and rubbed out--blotted a little here and there with tears. Much, too, is being obliterated day by day of the sorrow and the misery of it; for a woman's hand steals over mine sometimes, and will not let me write of the sorrowful part that has been mine, and is mine no longer. I have been greatly blessed; I pray my God that when the time comes that He calls me to answer for my great sin, it may happen that at the last her strong warm hand holds mine, and points me to the road--that her strong brave lips whisper to me what I shall say. THE END