confessing themselves; and I was not surprised when he presently added:
"It is not merely the fact that she is bound in that way, and that her
young life is passing in this sort of hopeless patience, but
that--that--I don't know how to put the ugly and wicked thing into
words, but I assure you that sometimes when I think--when I'm aware that
I know--Ah, I can't say it!"

"I fancy I understand what you mean, my dear boy," I said, and in the
right of my ten years' seniority I put my hand caressingly on his
shoulder, "and you are no more guilty than I am in knowing that if Mrs.
Bentley were not in the way there would be no obstacle to your
happiness."

"But such a cognition is of hell," he cried, and he let his face fall
into his hands and sobbed heartrendingly.

"Yes," I said, "such a cognition is of hell; you are quite right. So are
all evil concepts and knowledges; but so long as they are merely things
of our intelligence, they are no part of us, and we are not guilty of
them."

"No; I trust not, I trust not," he returned, and I let him sob his
trouble out before I spoke again; and then I began with a laugh of
unfeigned gayety. Something that my wife had hinted in one of our talks
about the lovers freakishly presented itself to my mind, and I said,
"There is a way, and a very practical way, to put an end to the anomaly
you feel in an engagement which doesn't imply a marriage."

"And what is that?" he asked, not very hopefully; but he dried his eyes
and calmed himself.