There was a new smile in her eyes.

She held out her hands to the youth who stood so erect and proud before her.

"Well, at the worst, William Douglas," she said, "you may never live to wear a white head, but at least you shall touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, taste the fruitage and smell the blossoms thereof more than a hundred greybeards.

I had not thought that earth held anywhere such a man, or that aught but blackness and darkness remained this side of hell for one so desolate as I.I have bid you leave me.

I have told you that which, were it known, would cost me my life.