"But it is madness," the girl whispered. "You know how dangerous it is.
Oh, Gerald, what must you think of me when--"

"I swear to you that I think nothing of you that is unkind or
ungenerous," Venner protested. "By a cruel stroke of fate we were parted
at the very moment when our happiness seemed most complete. Why you left
me in the strange way you did, I have never yet learned. In your letter
to me you told me you were bound to act as you did, and I believed you
implicitly. How many men in similar circumstances would have behaved as I
did? How many men would have gone on honoring a wife who betrayed her
husband as you betrayed me? And yet, as I stand here at this moment,
looking into your eyes, I feel certain that you are the same sweet and
innocent girl who did me the happiness to become my wife."

The beautiful face quivered, and the blue eyes filled with tears. Her
trembling hand lay on Venner's arm for a moment; then he caught the girl
to his side and kissed her passionately.

"I thank you for those words," she whispered. "From the bottom of my
heart I thank you. If you only knew what I have suffered, if you only
knew the terrible pressure that is put upon me;--and it seemed to me
that I was acting for the best. I hoped, too, that you would go away and
forget me; that in the course of time I should be nothing more than a
memory to you. And yet, in my heart, I always felt that we should meet
again. Is it not strange that we should come together like this?"

"I do not see that it is in the least strange," Venner replied,
"considering that I have been looking for you for the last three years.
When I found you to-night, it was with the greatest difficulty that I
restrained myself from laying my hands on the man who is the cause of