“You wish you had never seen me?” she said, her voice tremulous with emotion. “But if that is your wish, what do you think is mine? Nine years--my God!--nine years out of a woman's life! Ruin--you have made my life a ruin! Was there ever such truth as mine? Was there ever such falsehood as yours? Do you remember nothing of the past? Do you remember nothing of the words which you spoke in my hearing in this very room nearly nine years ago? 'I will be true to you for ever--I shall make a name that will in some degree be worthy of you.' Those were your words as we parted. Not a tear would I shed until you had gone away, though my tears were choking me. But then--then--oh, my God! what then? What voice is there that can tell a man of the agony of a constant woman? The days, the months, the years of that terrible constancy! nights of terror when I saw you lying dead among the wild places of that unknown world--nights when a passion of tears followed a passion ot prayer for your safety! Oh, the agony of those long years that robbed me of my youth--that scarred my face with lines of care! Well, they came to an end, my prayer was answered, you returned in safety; but instead of having some pity for the woman who had wasted her life in waiting for you, you flung me aside with scarcely a word, and now you reproach me--you reproach me! Give me back those years of my life that you robbed me of--give me back my youth that I wasted upon you--give me back the tears that I shed for you--and then I will listen to your reproaches.” “I deserve your worst reproaches,” said he, his head still bowed down. “I deserve the worst, and you have not spared me.” “Ah, I have spared you,” she said. “I might have allowed you to marry the daughter of that man, and to find out the terrible truth afterwards.” “It is just that I should suffer; but she--she--my beloved--is it just that she should suffer?” He had risen and was walking to and fro with clasped hands. “Alas! alas! Her judgment comes from you. It was you yourself who repeated those dreadful words--'unto the third and fourth generation.'” “She is guiltless--she shall never know of her father's crime.” He had stopped in the centre of the room and was looking toward the door. “She shall not hear of it from me,” said Agnes. “She shall at least be spared that pain, in addition to the pain of parting from you.” “She shall be spared ever, that,” said he in a low voice. “What?” “I cannot part from her It is too late now.” “You do not mean that”-- “I mean that I shall marry her.” A cry came from Agnes before he had quite spoken. “Ah, you will not be so pitiless,” she said. “You will not do her that injustice. You will not wreck her life, too.” “I will marry her,” said he doggedly.