This was the iron in my soul. It is an error so common. Women lie to men--and men to women for the matter of that--out of mistaken tenderness or ill-judged compassion, or that curious fear of recrimination from which the firmest courage is not exempt. A woman deceives a man with untruth, not because she is base, but because she fears to hurt him with the truth; fears his reproaches; fears a painful scene, and even when he is quite worthless she is reluctant to wound his weakness. It is an error so common in this everyday life of ours: an error that is fatal always. Had she been quite frank with me on that night when we had parted we might not have found ourselves fettered as we now were--she held to a man who was clearly an adventurer and a blackguard to boot. Yet how could I reproach her for what was a great and complete self-sacrifice. No. She had done what was, perhaps, strictly her duty, even though both our lives had been wrecked in consequence. "My love!" I murmured passionately, as with a cry I caught her in my arms, and held her close to me, as a man will hold some dear dead thing. And was she not, alas! now dead to me? Our lips met again, but she was still silent. How many moments went I do not know; as there are years in which a man does not live a moment, so there are moments in which one lives a lifetime. Her soft blue eyes closed beneath my kisses, my sense grew faint, the world became dark, all light and life shut out from me--all dark. But it was the sweet warm darkness, as though of the balmy night in June; and even then I know I prayed, prayed to Him that she might still be mine. The trance of passion passed. How long it lasted I cannot tell. After a while, the cloud that had enveloped my senses seemed suddenly to lift; the sweet unconsciousness died away. I lifted my head and strained myself backward, still holding her, and yet I shivered as I stood. I remembered. She, with a quick vague fear awakening in her eyes, held herself from me. "Why look at me like that?" she cried. "I--I cannot bear it. Let us part now--at once. I must return, or my absence will be known and I shall be questioned." I do not know what I said in answer. All madness of reproach that ever man's tongue could frame left my lips in those blind cruel moments. All excuse for her; all goodness in her I forgot! Ah! God forgive me, I forgot! She had deceived me; that was all I knew, or cared to know. In that mad moment all the pride in me, fanned by the wind of jealousy, flamed afresh, and burned up love. In that sudden passion of love and hate my brain had gone. Yet she stood motionless, pale as death, and trembling, her eyes filled with the light of unshed tears. I do not know what she said in response to my cruel bitter reproaches.