"If preachers could speak with your tongue," exclaimed Morton, "the world would forget itself and grow virtuous. The love that I have lost on earth I will set among the stars. It shall be my beacon till the day I die." "We are too delicate and timorous to bear a part in the active struggles of life; but it is a woman's office to raise and purify the thoughts of those who do. You, whose strong natures are formed for warfare, cannot be so sensitive as we are to every spot that dims the brightness of your armor. It is easy for me, before one whom I have loved as I have loved you, to hold this tone, and be borne up for a time above the thought of grief and renouncement. But it is a different task to still, through all a lifetime, the longings of a woman's heart, and the impatient surgings of a woman's temperament. This is the task assigned me, and I accept it. Life--action--are before you. Patience is my medicine; the slow talisman which must open in the end my door of promise." Morton pressed her hand to his lips. "'There is some soul of goodness in things evil.' A sorrow under which, feebly borne, the mind would wither to the earth, borne well will lift it above the clouds. Do not believe that I have deceived any one. He knows on what terms he takes me. I feel respect, esteem, confidence, warm friendship for him." "May you never be undeceived," thought Morton to himself. "But for any more ardent love,--that, I told him, was buried in the grave with you." She was silent for a moment, and then went on. "It will not be wise, or right, for us to see each other often. In time, you will meet some one with whom you can forget the pain of this separation." Morton shook his head. "Yes--at least I trust you will. But we can never forget what we have been to each other. Our reality is melted into a dream, but we must not allow it to remain a dream. Let it be to us a fountain of high thoughts, whose streams may water all our lives." "You are an alchemist, Edith," said Morton; "you have found the secret to change lead and iron into pure gold. And yet you make me feel, more than ever, if that can be, what a crown I have lost." When Morton left the house, after a half hour's interview, the agitation with which he had entered it had sunk into quiet; for an influence had fallen upon him as soothing and elevating as if he had been listening to the paschal music in the chapel of the choir at St. Peter's. And as an aeronaut, tossed among tempestuous clouds, is borne of a sudden above the turmoil, and floats serene in a calmer sky, so the troubled mind of Morton felt itself buoyed up for a space above the tumult of passionate and bitter thought. CHAPTER LVI. For close designs and crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit.--_Dryden_.