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 reconciled me to my lot, and extinguished many bitter feelings in me."

"You trusted me, Cherokee, and I believe there is a kind of sanctity in your ignorance and trust—there is a soul about you as well as a body. Is it with that soul you have loved me?"

"Yes, Marrion, I love you better than life now."

"Then our love can surely not be wrong. Depend upon it, that God Almighty, who sums up all the good and evil done by his children, will not judge the world with the same unequal severity as those drones of society. Surely He requires not such sacrifices from us; no, not even the wrathful, avenging Father."

His tone was one of infinite persuasion.

"God understands what you are to me—youth, beauty, truth, hope and life."

"You forget your friend, my husband," she warned.

"No, I do not forget. He is a man for whom I would all but die, but I love you better than anything else."

"And that is more than he does," she broke in, sorrowfully.

"Cherokee, be mine in spirit? I plead as an innocent man pleads for justice."

"Stop!" she cried, "let me speak. You have a