leaving him, it was like drawing the soul from her living body, to leave
it pulseless, dead. Yet she would do it.

"I am not fit to be any man's wife. If you had come to me when I was a
child, it might have been,--it ought to have been,"--with an effort to
draw her hands from him.

Blecker only smiled, and seated her gently on the mossy boll of the
beech-tree.

"Stay. Listen to me," he whispered.

And Grey, being a woman and no philosopher, sat motionless, her hands
folded, nerveless, where he had let them fall, her face upturned, like
that of the dead maiden waiting the touch of infinite love to tremble
and glow back into beautiful life. He did not speak, did not touch her,
only bent nearer. It seemed to him, as the pure moonlight then held them
close in its silent bound, the great world hushed without, the light air
scarce daring to touch her fair, waiting face, the slow-heaving breast,
the kindling glow in her dark hair, that all the dead and impure years
fell from them, and in a fresh new-born life they stood alone, with the
great Power of strength and love for company. What need was there of
words? She knew it all: in the promise and question of his face waited
for her the hope and vigor the time gone had never known: her woman's
nature drooped and leaned on his, content: the languid hazel eye
followed his with such intent, one would have fancied that her soul in
that silence had found its rest and home forever.

He took her hand, and drew from it the old ring that yet bound one of
her fingers, the sign of a lie long dead, and without a word dropped it