Mrs. Hirste withdrew, and her lodger immediately locked the door.  Then she threw off the gray cloak and thick veil.

“I am alone,” she said—­“alone and safe.  Oh, if my wretched life be worth gratitude, thank God! thank God!”

She repeated the words with a burst of hysterical weeping.  She knelt by the little white bed and buried her face in her hands.  Deep, bitter sobs shook her whole frame; from her white lips came a low moan that betokened anguish too great for words.  Then, when the passion of grief had subsided and she was exhausted, she rose and stood erect.  Then one saw how superbly beautiful she was, although her face was stained with tears.

She was still young, not more than three-and-twenty; her figure was of rarest symmetry; when the great world knew her it had been accustomed to say that her figure resembled that of the celebrated Diana for the Louvre; there was the marvelous, free-spirited grace and matchless perfection.

She had the face and head of a young queen, a face of peerless beauty; a white, broad brow that might have worn a crown; eyes of the dark hue of the violets, with long fringes that rested on a cheek perfect in shape and color; brows straight, like those of a Greek goddess; lips sweet and proud—­they were white now, and quivering, but the beauty of the mouth was unchanged.

So she stood in all the splendor of her grand loveliness.  There is over her whole figure and face that indescribable something which tells that she is wife and mother both, that look of completed life.

The hands, so tightly clasped, are white and slender.  There is no attribute of womanly loveliness that does not belong to her.

After a time she went to the window.  Great crimson roses, wet with dew, and odorous woodbine peeped in as she opened it.  The night-wind was heavy with the perfume of the sleeping flowers, the golden stars were shining in the sky, and she raised her pale, lovely face to the radiant heavens.

“My God!” she prayed, “take pity on me, and before I realize what has happened, let me die!”

“Let me die!” No other prayer went from her lips, although she sat there from sunset until the early dawn of the new day flushed in the glorious eastern skies.

While she sits there, with that despairing prayer rising from the depths of her despairing heart, we will tell the story of Marian Arleigh’s penance.

CHAPTER II.

“You cannot be cruel.  You cannot think it is wrong to meet me.  My whole life, with everything in it, belongs to you.  If you told me to lie down here and die at your feet, I should do so and smile.  Why do you say it is wrong, Marion?”

A lovely, child-like face was raised to the speaker.

“I do not know.  I have a vague idea that anything requiring secrecy must be wrong.  Is it not so?”

He laughed.