yourself I must know something more. You are almost a woman. You are
beautiful."

At this he tightened his grasp, and it brought him closer to her side.
She made a little struggle to draw away, but it pleased him to see
that when the first modest opposition had been tried she sat quite
happily, though trembling, with his arm around her.

"Joyce," he continued, "you have a double duty: one to your mother and
this poor invalid, whose journey toward that Father's house not made
with hands is swiftly hastening; another duty toward your nobler
self--the future that is in you and your woman's heart. I tell you
again that you are beautiful, and the slavery to which you are
condemning yourself forever is an offence against the creator of such
perfection. Do you know what it is to love?"

"I know what it is to feel kindness," she answered after a time of
silence. "I ought to know no more. You goodness is very dear to me. We
never sleep, brother and I, but we say your name together, and ask God
to bless you."

Reybold sought in vain to suppress a confession he had resisted. The
contact of her form, her large dark eyes now fixed upon him in
emotion, the birth of the conscious woman in the virgin and her
affection still in the leashes of a slavish sacrifice, tempted him
onward to the conquest.

"I am about to retire from Congress," he said. "It is no place for me
in times so insubstantial. There is darkness and beggary ahead for all
your Southern race. There is a crisis coming which will be followed by