He would be his Herminia's guardian angel. He would use her love
for him,--for he knew she loved him,--as a lever to egg her aside
from these slippery moral precipices.

He mistook the solid rock of ethical resolution he was trying to
disturb with so frail an engine. The fulcrum itself would yield
far sooner to the pressure than the weight of Herminia's
uncompromising rectitude. Passionate as she was,--and with that
opulent form she could hardly be otherwise,--principle was still
deeper and more imperious with her than passion.



V.


He met her by appointment on the first ridge of Bore Hill. A sunny
summer morning smiled fresh after the rain. Bumble-bees bustled
busily about the closed lips of the red-rattle, and ripe gorse pods
burst with little elastic explosions in the basking sunlight.

When Alan reached the trysting-place, under a broad-armed oak, in a
glade of the woodland, Herminia was there before him; a good woman
always is, 'tis the prerogative of her affection. She was simply
dressed in her dainty print gown, a single tea-rosebud peeped out
from her bodice; she looked more lily-like, so Alan thought in his
heart, than he had ever yet seen her. She held out her hand to him
with parted lips and a conscious blush. Alan took it, but bent
forward at the same time, and with a hasty glance around, just
touched her rich mouth. Herminia allowed him without a struggle;