Is there no way out of it but this? Oh, sir, I am not fit to marry her! What am I, to take a fellow-creature's happiness into my hands? What have I to offer her but the truth in return for her love, if I must take it to secure her peace?"

"If you offer the truth, you certainly will have nothing else, and not even receive love in return, perhaps; for her respect may go with all the rest. If I know her, the loss of that would wound her heart more deeply than the disappointment your silence will bring her now. Think of this, and be wise as well as generous in the atonement you should make."

"Bound, whichever way I look; for when I meant to be kindest I am cruel."

Canaris stood perplexed, abashed, remorseful; for Helwyze had the art to turn even his virtues into weapons against him, making his new-born regard for Gladys a reason for being falsely true, dishonorably tender. The honest impulse suddenly looked weak and selfish, compassion seemed nobler than sincerity, and present peace better than future happiness.

Helwyze saw that he was wavering, and turned the scale by calling to his aid one of the strongest passions that rule men--the spirit of rivalry--knowing well its power over one so young, so vain and sensitive.

"Felix, there must be an end of this; I am tired of it. Since you are more enamoured of truth than Gladys, choose, and abide by it. I shall miss my congenial comrade, but I will not keep him if he feels my friendship slavery. I release you from all promises: go your way, in peace; I can do without you."

A daring offer, and Helwyze risked much in making it; but he knew the man before him, and that in seeming to set free, he only added another link to the invisible chain by which he held him. Canaris looked relieved, amazed, and touched, as he exclaimed, incredulously--

"Do you mean it, sir?"

"I do; but in return for your liberty I claim the right to use mine as I will."

"Use it? I do not understand."

"To comfort Gladys."

"How?"

"You do not love her, and leave her doubly forlorn, since you have given her a glimpse of love. I must befriend her, as you will not; and when she comes to me, as she has promised, if she is happy, I shall keep her."

"As fille adoptive."

Canaris affirmed, not asked, this; and, in the changed tone, the suspicious glance, Helwyze saw that he had aimed well. With a smile that was a sneer, he answered coldly--

"Hardly that: the paternal element is sadly lacking in me; and, if it were not, I fear a man of forty could not adopt a girl of eighteen without compromising her, especially one so lonely and so lovely as poor little Gladys."

"You will marry her? Yet when I hinted it, you said, "Impossible!'"

"I did; but then I did not know how helpful she could be, how glad to love, how easy to be won by kindness. Ennui drives one to do the rashest things; and when you are gone, I shall find it difficult to fill your place. 'Tis a pity to tie the pretty creature to such a clod. But, if I can help and keep her in no other way, I may do it, remembering that her captivity would be a short one; it should be my care that it was a very light one while it lasted."

"But she loves me!" exclaimed Canaris, with jealous inconsistency.

"I fear so; yet you reject her for a scruple. Hearts are easily caught in the rebound; and who will hold hers more gently than I? Olivia will tell you I can be gentle when it suits me."

The name stung Canaris, where pride was sorest; and the thought, that this man could take from him both the woman whom he loved and the girl who loved him, roused an ignoble desire to silence the noble one. He showed it instantly, for his eye shot a quick glance at the mirror; a smile that was almost insolent passed over his face; and his air was full of the proud consciousness of youth, health, comeliness, and talent.

"Thanks for my freedom; I shall know how to use it. Since I may tell Gladys the truth, I do not dread her love so much; and will atone generously, if I can. I think she will accept poverty with me rather than luxury with you. At least she shall have her choice."

"Well said. You will succeed, since you possess all the gifts which win women except wealth and"--

"Stop! you shall not say it," cried Canaris, hotly. "Are you possessed of a devil, that you torment me so?" He clenched his hands, and walked fast through the room, as if to escape from some fierce impulse.

A certain, almost brutal, frankness characterized the intercourse of these men at times; for the tie between them was a peculiar one, and fretted both, though both clung to it with strange tenacity. With equal candor and entire composure Helwyze answered the excited question.

"We are all possessed, more or less; happy the man who is master. My demon is a bad one; for your intellectual devil is hard to manage, since he demands the best of us, and is not satisfied or cheated as easily as some that are stronger, yet less cunning. Yours is ambition--an insatiable fellow, who gives you no rest. I had a fancy to help you rule him; but he proves less interesting than I thought to find him, and is getting to be a bore. See what you can do, alone; only, when he gets the upper hand again, excuse me from interfering: once is enough."

Canaris made no reply, but dashed out of the room, as if he could bear no more, leaving Helwyze to throw down his book, muttering impatiently--

"Here is a froward favorite, and excitement with a vengeance! He will not speak yet; for with all his fire he is wary, and while he fumes I must work. But how? but how?"


VII

A storm raged all that night; but dawn came up so dewy and serene, that the world looked like a child waking after anger, with happy smiles upon its lips, penitential tears in its blue eyes.

Canaris was early astir, after a night as stormy within as without, during which he had gone through so many alternations of feeling, that, weary and still undecided, he was now in the mood to drift whithersoever the first eddy impelled him. Straight to Gladys, it seemed; and, being superstitious, he accepted the accident as a good omen, following his own desire, and calling it fate.

Wandering in the loneliest, wildest spot of all the domain, he came upon her as suddenly as if a wish had brought her to the nook haunted for both by pleasant memories. Dew-drenched her feet, hatless her head; but the feet stood firmly on the cliff which shelved down to the shore below, and the upturned head shone bright against the deep blue of the sky. Morning peace dwelt in her eyes, morning freshness glowed on her cheek, and her whole attitude was one of unconscious aspiration, as she stood there with folded hands and parted lips, drinking in the storm-cooled breeze that blew vigorous and sweet across the lake.

"What are you doing here so early, little dryad?" and Canaris paused, with an almost irresistible desire to put out his arms and hold her, lest she fly away, so airy was her perch, so eager her look into the boundless distance before her.

"Only being happy!" and she looked down into his face with such tender and timid joy in her own, he hardly had need to ask--

"Why, Gladys?"

"Because of this," showing a string of pearls that hung from her hand, half-hidden among the trailing bits of greenery gathered in her walk.

"Who gave you that?" demanded Canaris, eying it with undisguised surprise; for the pearls were great, globy things, milk-white, and so perfect that any one but Gladys would have seen how costly was the gift.

"Need you ask?" she said, blushing brightly.

"Why not? Do you suspect me?"

"You cannot deceive me by speaking roughly and looking stern. Who but you would put these in my basket without a word, and let me find them there when I laid my work away last night? I was so pleased, so proud, I could not help keeping them, though far too beautiful for me."

Then Canaris knew who had done it; and his hand tightened over the necklace, while his eye went towards the lake, as if he longed to throw it far into the water.