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 The moon, still pale and languorous, shone from the lately racked sky on the tree buds, so warm in tone that their color became an old ivory, and the limbs and branches black carvings and traceries.

Faint mists rose in wreaths and floated in gossamer folds about the trunks of the trees, and at times above their forms. The whole scene had a meaning of sad regrets.

Cherokee broke the silence:

"I wonder what keeps Robert so long; it must be nine o'clock."

"Don't be uneasy, he is doubtless with some congenial companion." Then, almost before he knew it, Marrion asked:

"Did you know that Robert was dissipated before you married him?"

He felt himself tremble, as if he intruded where she knelt. As intimately as he had known her, yet he never before had dared approach her inner life so nearly.

"Tell me all," he said. "If ever a heart could open to a friend, now must that door unclose."

"No. I didn't believe it; I should have never married him if I had known. I made a mistake. A Southern girl should only marry one of her kind; he alone could understand and appreciate her nature."