fool as to make any treaty with you that would leave you in your pulpit
one Sabbath Day."

"What do you--what do you mean by that?"

"I mean that such a treaty would be foul faith to everybody."

"So, then, you do propose one common shipwreck for us all."

"Quite the contrary. To trust the fortunes of our loved ones to any
treaty with a rotten soul would indeed be to launch them upon a stormy
sea in a rotten boat. But I do not believe your soul is so. I believe it
is sound,--still sound, though on fire; and so, to help you quench its
burning, I give you my pledge to be from this day a stranger to your
sweet wife. And now will you do something for me, to prove that your
soul is sound and is going to stay sound? It shall be the least I can
ask in good faith to the world we live in."

"What is it?" asked Arthur. There was no capitulation in his face or his
voice.

"I want you to make to Isabel a full retraction and explanation of every
falsehood you have uttered to her or to me in this matter." Leonard was
pale again; Arthur burned red a moment, and then turned paler than
Leonard.

"You fiend!" gasped the husband. "I am to exalt you, and abase myself,
to her?"

"No. No, Arthur. Women are strange; every chance is that in her eyes I