would be a new life, and in it all the past would be forgotten."
"Why do you talk like this to me, George? I cannot bear it. You raise pictures before me which never can exist. All I want is to live on here in my sorrow and difficulties, and just now and then to see you and talk to you, and thus to get refreshed and go back to my duties again with a lighter heart, and strengthened to bear my burden."
"I do not understand what you mean by duties," he said. "You have told me more than once that you have only formally taken Elijali Rebow as a husband, but that he is nothing to you in reality, you do not love him, and have no tie to bind you to him save the farce you went through with him in church."
"There is another," said Mehalah in a faint tone.
"What other? What other can there be? You do not look on him as your husband, do you?"
"No, I do not, and I never will."
"You do not even wear a wedding ring."
"No."
"He understood that he was to be regarded by you in no other light than as one who gave his name to you in consideration for some service."
"That was all."
"Then I cannot see that you are not free. You promised to be my wife, quite as solemnly as you have promised anything to Elijah, and you made your agreement with him on the supposition that I was dead. He knew he was deceiving you, and that I was alive to claim the fulfilment of your oath to me. He got your promise from you under false representations, and it cannot stand. You did not know how matters stood, or you would never have taken it."
"Never, never!"
"Through all, you say, you have held true to me."
"Indeed I have, George."
"Then Glory, my dearest, our course is quite clear. You are not bound to this man, but you are bound to me. Your tie to him is worthless and is snapped; your tie to me is strong and holds. I insist on the fulfilment, I
