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346 "Oh, Frank, it has spoiled your life."

"No," he answered—"only wrong-doing can do that. There has been no wrong-doing here, either on her side or mine. I shall always love her, but I see now that she could never have loved me, and that I couldn't have made her happy. I have felt it lately in a way that has been intensifying every day. I've had the sort of feeling that it couldn't be. It took a great deal to make Elsie love; but now that she does love, it will be for ever."

"Yes," said Ina; "when one loves like that, it must be for ever."

"Ina," he said, suddenly startled by something spiritualized in her face, "you are suffering, too; and I have been so selfishly absorbed in my own anxiety that I have thought little of your grief."

"Yes, I am suffering," she said quietly, "but not quite in the way you think. I am glad that Horace died before he had done what all his life would have weighted him with sorrow and remorse. The wrong was that I did not love him as I ought." She stopped, and a burning blush overspread her face.

He saw it, and a strange look came into his own face. She went on hurriedly.

"Elsie is right. There is no worse crime, when one knows; and Elsie knows now. I wanted her to marry you, but I am glad now that she will not."

"Ina," Frank said again, "you won't let this make any difference between us? We have always been like brother and sister, haven't we? and we'll be brother and sister still."

"Yes," said Ina; "brother and sister." She gave him her hand, and he pressed it in his and went away.

That night Elsie wrote to Blake a long letter, of which only a few lines may be given here.

"My love, you won't misjudge me, and I have no shame in what I say to you. Love knows no shame, and after last night there can be only truth between us. I am yours, and