But do not stoop to treachery and falsehood to thrust us down.

Oh, you have made me see the depths of shame to-day! But yet," her voice suddenly changed, a note of plaintive force filled it--"I have learned much this hour--more than I ever knew.

Perhaps it is that we come to knowledge only through fire and tears." She smiled sadly.

"I suppose that sometime some day, this page of life would have scorched my sight.

Oh, my lord, what was there in me that you dared speak so to me?
Was there naught to have stayed your tongue and stemmed the tide in which you would engulf me ?" He had listened as in a dream at first.