love in his eyes, as he had done so many, many happy nights.

Was it, after all, a dream--that terrible picture of two lighted figures
that was for ever in her eyes? No, there was a voice that went day and
night with the dream, a voice of terrible tenderness that kept crying:
"Meantime I bless thee ... "--"I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to
wine ..." Ah, no, it was real, real. The trial was not to pass from her
in a dream.

Theophil had knelt down at her side and taken her hand gently and would
have kissed her, but that her eyes were so full of pain as she turned
them to meet his. Besides, strange words to hear! she was asking him not
to kiss her.

"Theophil dear, don't kiss me yet. I have something to say, and if you
kiss me I shall have no strength to say it."

"Jenny!"

"Dear," she began with a voice that seemed to bleed at every word, "I
want to be so kind. I don't want to hurt you with a single word. You'll
believe that, won't you?"

Theophil pressed her hand for assent, but already in a flash the whole
revelation was upon him. Jenny knew he loved Isabel. This awful pain
that was all over her was the lightning from which they had willed
to save her.

"Theophil," Jenny had gone on, and there seemed a death in every word,
"I know that you love Isabel."