But for this direct allusion to his note, Arthur would assuredly have gone away, leaving his errand untold.  But he could not do so now.  She was waiting for him to speak, and undoubtedly wondering at his silence.  Thrice he attempted to articulate, but his tongue seemed paralyzed, and reeking with perspiration, he sat unable to move until she said again, “Is it of Nina you would tell me?”

Then the spell was broken, Nina was the sesame which unlocked his powers of speech; and wiping the large drops from his forehead, he answered,

“Yes, Edith, of Nina, of myself, of you.  Edith, you know how much I love you, don’t you, darling?”

The words were apparently wrung from him greatly against his will.  They were not what he intended to say, and he would have given worlds to have recalled them, but they were beyond his reach, and the very walls of the room seemed to echo in thunder tones,

“You know how much I love you, don’t you, darling?”

Yes, she did know; he knew she did by the glance she gave him back, and laying his head upon the table, he neither moved nor spoke until a footstep glided to his side, and a soft hand pressed his burning brow, while a voice, whose tones drifted him far, far back to the sea of darkness and doubt where he had so long been bravely buffetting the billows, whispered to him,

“Arthur, I do know, or rather believe you love me.  You would not tell me an untruth, but I do not understand why it should make you so unhappy.”

He did not answer her at once, but retained within his own the little hand which trembled for a moment like an imprisoned bird and then grew warm and full of vigorous life just as Edith was, standing there before him.  What should he do?  What could he do?  Surely, never so dark an hour had gathered round him, or one so fraught with peril.  Like lightning his mind took in once more the whole matter as it was.  Griswold was dead.  On his grave the autumn leaves were falling and the nightly vigils by that grave had been of no avail.  Nina could never comprehend, the written proof was burned, Richard had forgotten, there was nothing in the way save his conscience and that would not be silent.  Loudly it whispered to the anguished man that happiness could not be secured by trampling on Nina’s rights; that remorse would mix itself with every joy and at the last would drive him mad.

“You mistake me, I cannot,” he began to say, but Edith did not heed it, for a sound without had caught her ear, telling her that Richard had unexpectedly returned, and Victor was coming for her.

There was an expression of impatience on Edith’s face, as to Victor’s summons she replied, “Yes, yes, in a moment;” but Arthur breathed more freely as, rising to his feet, he said, “I cannot now say all I wish to say, but meet me, to-morrow at this hour in the Deering Woods, near the spot where the mill brook falls over those old stones.  You know the place.  We went there once with—­ Nina.”