Nothing could have tempted Margie to have credited such a story of her lover, had it not been for the overwhelming evidence of her own senses.  Ever since the night of Paul Linmere’s assassination, she had at times been tortured with agonizing doubts.  From the first she had been morally sure whose lips had touched her hand that night in the graveyard; she knew that no other presence than that of Archer Trevlyn had the power to influence her as she had been influenced.  She knew that he had been there, though she had not seen him; and for what purpose had he been there?  It was a question she had asked herself a thousand times!

There could be no doubt any longer.  She was forced to that conclusion at last; her heart sinking like lead in her bosom as she came to acknowledge it.  In a moment of terrible temptation, Arch Trevlyn had stained his hands with blood!  And for her sake!

There was a violent warfare in her heart.  Her love for Archer Trevlyn had not sprung up in a day; its growth had been slow, and it had taken deep root.  Oh, how hard it was to give up the blissful dream!  She thought of his early life—­how it had been full of temptation—­how his noble nature had been warped and perverted by the evil influences that had surrounded him, and for a while the temptation was strong upon her soul to forgive him everything—­to ignore all the past, and take him into her life as though the fearful story she had just listened to had been untold.  Marry a murderer!

“Oh, God!” she cried in horror, as the whole extent of the truth burst upon her:  “Oh, my God, pity and aid me!”

She sank down on her knees, and though her lips uttered no sound, her heart prayed as only hearts can pray when wrung with mortal suffering.  She saw her duty clearly.  Archer Trevlyn must be given up; from that there could be no appeal.  Henceforth he must be to her as though he had never been.  She must put him entirely out of her life—­out of her thoughts—­out of her sleeping and waking dreams.

But she could give him no explanation of her change of mind.  She had passed her word—­nay, she had sworn never to reveal aught that Miss Lee had told her, and a promise was binding.  But he would not need any explanation.  His own guilty conscience would tell him why he was renounced.

She took off the rose-colored dress in which she had arrayed herself to meet him, and folded it away in a drawer of her wardrobe, together with every other adornment she had worn that night.  They would always be to her painful reminders of that terrible season of anguish and despair.  When all were in, she shut them away from her sight, turned the key upon them, and flung it far out of the window.

Then she opened her writing desk, and took out all the little notes he had ever written to her, read them all over, and holding them one by one to the blaze of the lamp, watched them with a sort of stony calmness until they shrivelled and fell in ashes, black as her hopes, to the floor.  Then his gifts; a few simple things.  These she did not look at; she put them hastily into a box, sealed them up, and wrote his address on the cover.