Bitterly he repented his confession; bitterly he felt that between his sufferings and human sympathy there could be no gentle and holy commune; vainly he sought to retract,--to undo what he had done, to declare all was but the chimera of an overheated brain! And brave and generous was this denial of himself; for, often and often, as he thus spoke, he saw the Thing of Dread gliding to her side, and glaring at him as he disowned its being.

But what chilled him, if possible, yet more than her wasting form and trembling nerves, was the change in her love for him; a natural terror had replaced it.

She turned paler if he approached,--she shuddered if he took her hand.

Divided from the rest of earth, the gulf of the foul remembrance yawned now between his sister and himself.

He could endure no more the presence of the one whose life HIS life had embittered.