Her smooth brow wrinkled with a sudden spasm of pain but her firm lips did not quiver.

“It means,” said she, drawing nearer but not with that approach which indicates yielding, “it means, shame to the proudest family that lives in the land.  It means silence as regards a past blotted by suggestions of crime; and apprehension concerning a future across which the shadow of prison walls must for so many years lie.  It means, the hushing of certain words upon beloved lips; the turning of cherished eyes from visions where fathers and daughters ay, brothers and sisters are seen joined together in tender companionship or loving embrace.  It means,—­God help me to speak out—­a home without the sanctity of memories; a husband without the honors he has been accustomed to enjoy; a wife with a fear gnawing like a serpent into her breast; and children, yes, perhaps children from whose innocent lips the sacred word of grandfather can never fall without wakening a blush on the cheeks of their parents, which all their lovesome prattle will be helpless to chase away.”

“Luttra, your father and your brother have given their consent to go their dark way alone and trouble you no more.  The shadow you speak of may lie on your heart, dear wife, for these men are of your own blood, but it need never invade the hearthstone beside which I ask you to sit.  The world will never know, whether you come with me or not, that Luttra Blake was ever Luttra Schoenmaker.  Will you not then give me the happiness of striving to make such amends for the past, that you too, will forget you ever bore any other name than the one you now honor so truly?”

“O do not,” she began but paused with a sudden control of her emotion that lifted her into an atmosphere almost holy in its significance.  “Mr. Blake,” said she, “I am a woman and therefore weak to the voice of love pleading in my ear.  But in one thing I am strong, and that is in my sense of what is due to the man I have sworn to honor.  Eleven months ago I left you because your pleasure and my own dignity demanded it; to-day I put by all the joy and exaltation you offer, because your position as a gentleman, and your happiness as a man equally requires it.”

“My happiness as a man!” he broke in.  “Ah, Luttra if you love me as I do you—­”

“I might perhaps yield,” she allowed with a faint smile.  “But I love you as a girl brought up amid surroundings from which her whole being recoiled, must love the one who first brought light into her darkness and opened up to her longing feet the way to a life of culture, purity and honor.  I were the basest of women could I consent to repay such a boundless favor—­”

“But Luttra,” he again broke in, “you married me knowing what your father and brother were capable of committing.”