“I know such a case.  I know a man who has to decide it.  It is not a light matter for any man, and his is a soul as sensitive as God ever made.  He was betrothed to a woman every way worthy; he loved her sincerely.  His chief fault, and a serious one it is, came from his susceptibility to fresh impressions.  The pleasure of the present had more power over him than any recollections of the past.  The influence of the living woman at his side was greater, for the moment, than that of any absent love.  In an evil hour, he committed himself to another.  She was, doubtless, formed to inspire his passion and to return it.  But he was not free, and had no right to linger on forbidden ground.  For weeks, nay, months, he lived this false and wicked life, of a different mind every day, and lacking the courage to meet the difficulty.  At last he became sure that his love belonged where his faith was due,—­that, if he would not live a wretched hypocrite, he must humble himself to confess his criminal weakness, and return to his first engagement.”

He paused; he might well do so.  Marcia, with some difficulty, was able to say, through her chattering teeth,—­

“You seem to take a deep interest in this weak-minded person.”

“I do,—­the deepest.  I am the man.”

She rose to her feet, and, looking scornfully down upon him, exclaimed,—­

“Then you acknowledge yourself a villain!—­not from premeditation, which would give your baseness some dignity, but a weakly fool, so tossed about by Fate that he is made a villain without either desire or resistance!”

“You may overwhelm me with reproaches; I am prepared for them; I deserve them.  But God only knows through what a season of torture I have passed to come to this determination.”

“A very ingenious story, Mr. Greenleaf!  Do you suppose that the world will believe it, the day after our losses?  Do you expect me to believe it, even?”

“I told you that I had not heard of the failure.  I am in the habit of being believed.”

“For instance, when you vowed that you loved me, and me only!”

“You may spare your taunts.  But, to show you how mercenary I am, let me assure you that the woman to whom my word is pledged, and to whom I must return, is without any property or expectations.”

“Very well, Sir,” said Marcia, rubbing her hands, in the endeavor to conceal her agitation; “we need not waste words.  After what you have told me, I could only despise such a whiffler,—­a scrap of refuse iron at the mercy of any magnet,—­a miller dashing into every fight.  A lover so helpless must needs have some new passional attraction—­that is the phrase, I believe—­with every changing moon.  The man I love should be made of different stuff.”  She drew her figure up proudly, and her lips curled like a beautiful fiend’s.  “He should bury the disgraceful secret, if he had it, in his heart, and carry it to his grave.  He would not cry out like a boy with a cut finger.”