"I love you!" he cried, and his face was buried on my bosom. * * * * * From that hour the Rev. Herman Barnhurst was the constant visitor at my house. He lived in my presence. His sermons, formerly lofty and somber in their enthusiasm, became colored with a passionate warmth. I felt a strange interest in the beautiful boy; a feeling compounded of pure love; of passion; of voluptuousness, the most intense and refined. "O, Marion, do you not think that if I act aright in all other respects, that this _one sin_ will be forgiven me?" said Herman, as one Sabbath evening, after the service was over, we sat, side by side, in my house. It was in a quiet room, the curtains drawn, a light shining in front of a mirror, and a couch dimly seen through the shadows of an alcove. "One sin? what mean you, Herman?" "The sin of loving you,"--and he blushed as his earnest gaze met mine. "And is it a sin to love me?" I answered in a low voice, suffering my hand to rest upon his forehead. "Yes," he stammered,--"to love you thus unlawfully." "Why unlawfully?" He buried his head on my breast, as he replied,--"I love you as a husband, and I am not your husband." "And why--" I exclaimed, seizing him in my arms, and gently raising his head, so that our gaze met,--"and why can you not be my husband? I am rich; you have genius. My wealth,--enough for us both,--shall be linked with your genius, and both shall the more firmly cement our love. Say, Herman, why can you not be my husband?" He turned pale, and avoided my gaze. "You are ashamed of me,--ashamed, because I have given you the last proof which a woman can give to the man she loves." "Ashamed! O, no, no,--by all that is sacred, no,--but Marion----" And bending nearer to me, in faltering accents, he whispered the secret to my ears. He was betrothed to Fanny Lansdale, the daughter of the wealthiest and most influential member of his congregation. He had been betrothed long before he met me. To Mr. Lansdale, the father, he owed all that he had acquired in life, both in position and fame. That gentleman had taken him when a friendless orphan boy, had educated him, and after his ordination, had obtained for him the pastoral charge of his large and wealthy congregation. Thus, he was bound to the father by every tie of gratitude; to the daughter by an engagement that he could not break, without ingratitude and disgrace. My heart died within me at this revelation. At once I saw that Herman could never be lawfully mine. Between him and myself stood Fanny Lansdale, and every tie of gratitude, and every emotion of self-respect and honor. CHAPTER XII. MARION AND FANNY.