“You do not know what do counsel me!” she cried.  “Then you do not—­care—­” Tears rolled over her cheeks, and Eugene gathered her into his arms again, and laid his cheek against her fair head, and soothed her as he would have soothed a child.  “There, there,” he whispered, “it is not that, it is not that, sweet.  I would die for you, I love you so!  It is not that, but you are the promised wife of another man.  How can I turn a thief even for you, Dorothy?  How can I bid you be false, and forswear yourself?  There’s honor as well as love, child.”

“But love is honor,” said Dorothy.

“Not for a man,” said Eugene.

Then she clung to him softly and modestly, and sobbed, and he kissed her hair and whispered in one breath that she was all his own, and in another that he knew not what to do, and was near distracted between his love and his sense of honor, until Dorothy said something which set him pleading for his rival whether he would or no, for the sake of stern justice.

“I am afraid of him, I am afraid of Burr,” Dorothy whispered in his ear.  “How could I have married him, when I was so afraid, even if you had not come?”

“Afraid?”

“You—­know—­what—­they said—­Burr did!”

Eugene held her away from him by her slender arms, and looked at her.  “You did not believe that?”

“He would not tell me he was innocent, even when I begged him so.”

“You knew he was.”

“Why did he not tell me, when I begged him so?” she said, and the soft unyielding in her tone was absolute.

“Dorothy!”

“I am so afraid—­you don’t know,” she whispered, piteously.

“But—­you know Burr was cleared.”

“Yes, I know, but even now he will not tell me on the Bible, as I asked him, that he is innocent.”

“Dorothy, he is innocent,” Eugene said, with solemn and bitter emphasis of which she knew not the full meaning.

“Then why does he not swear that he is, to me?” Back went Dorothy always, in all reasoning, to the starting-point in her own mind.

“I tell you he is, child.  It has been proven so.”

“Then why—­” Dorothy began, but Eugene interrupted her in her circle.  “There is no more cause for you to fear him than me,” he said almost harshly, in his stern resolve to be just.  Then Dorothy turned on him with sudden passion.  “I am afraid,” she cried out, “I shall always be afraid; even if he were to swear to me now that he is innocent, I shall always be afraid, for I coupled him with that awful deed once in my thoughts, and I cannot separate him from it forever.  He will always hold the knife in his hand; even if it were not for you, I should be near mad with fear.  I bid black Phyllis stay by the door when he comes.”

“Dorothy!”

“Yes, I do.  What my mind has once laid hold of, that it will not let go.  I cannot separate him from my old thought of him.  I have tried to be faithful, and true, but even had he sworn to me that he was innocent, the fear would have remained.  Save me from him—­oh, Eugene, save me!”