“I’m not ashamed of it,” he said.  “I’ve had fancies for women, but I have never felt this way before.  It seems to me if I was to live a thousand years I’d never, never feel that you was like other women.  Maybe you love me real deep, and maybe you just fancy me, but I’ll never want any other human being like I want you.  I have been a bad man—­a careless, thoughtless man.  Ever since I was a boy I have played with love.  I was playing with fire—­the fire of hell, Harriet—­and I got burnt.  In consequence of what I’ve done I suffer as no mortal ever suffered.  Repentance brings contentment to some men, but they are not built like me.  I don’t do anything from morning to night but brood and brood over my past life.”

“I thought you had had some trouble,” she returned, sympathetically.

“Why did you think so?” he asked.

“You talked when you were out of your head.  That’s why I first took pity on you.  I never saw a man suffer in mind as you did.  You rolled and tumbled the first two or three nights and begged for forgiveness; often you spoke so loud I was afraid others in the house would hear.”

He opened his palms before her.  “These hands are soaked in human blood—­innocent human blood,” he said, tragically.  “I don’t deny it; if it would do a particle of good I’d tell every soul on earth.  I won a good girl’s love, and when I got tired of her and left her she killed herself to escape the misery I put her in.  I was unworthy of her, but she didn’t know it, or want to know it.  Nobody knows she took her own life except me and her mother, and it has ruined her life—­taken away her only comfort in old age and made her my mortal enemy.  She never gives me a minute’s rest—­she reminds me constantly that I’ll never get forgiveness and never be happily married, and she is right—­I never shall.  My wicked nature demands too much of a woman.  I can love, and do love, with all my soul, but my pride cannot be subdued.  I—­”

“I understand, Mr. Westerfelt” she broke in, quickly.  “Don’t bring up that subject again.  What you said when I last saw you was enough.  It almost kept me from coming to-night, but it was my duty; but you do not have to say any more about that.”  She took a step backward and stood staring at him in mute misery.  She had never felt that she was worthy of him, in a way, but his cold reference—­as she understood it—­to her misfortune released a spring of resentment she hardly knew was wound in her breast.

“Forgive me,” he pleaded, trying to regain her hands.  “I’ll never mention it again.  I promise you that—­never again.”

“It’s all right,” she answered, softening under his passionate gaze.  “But it would be kind of you to avoid mentioning what I cannot help.”

He was about to reply, but there was a sound of barking dogs from the mountain.  “Go quick!” She caught her breath.  “Don’t wait!  That may be them now.  Don’t let them kill you.”