"You will _not_! you will carry vengeance for one mad minute through a whole life! It is _impossible! impossible!_ if _you_ are so unforgiving, how do you expect God to forgive you your sins ?" I shrug my shoulders with a sort of despairing contempt.

God has seemed to me but dim of late.
"He may forgive them or leave them unforgiven as He sees best; but--_I will never forgive you!_" "What!" he cries, his face growing even more ash-white than it was before, and his voice quivering with a passionate anger; "not for _Barbara's_ sake ?" I shudder.

I hate to hear him pronounce her name.
"No," say I, steadily, "not for Barbara's sake!" "You will have to," he cries violently; "it is nonsense! think of the close connection, of the _relationship_ that there will be between us! think of the remarks you will excite! you will defeat your own object!" "I will excite no remark!" I reply resolutely.

"I will be quite civil to you! I will say 'good-morning' and 'good-evening' to you; if you ask me a question I will answer it; but--I will _never_ forgive you!" We are standing, as I before observed, close together, and are so wholly occupied--voices, eyes, and ears--with each other, that we do not perceive the approach of two hitherto unseen people who are coming dawdling and chatting up the conservatory that opens out of the room; two people that I suppose have been there, unknown to us, all along.
They have come quite close now, and we must needs perceive them.
In a second our eager talk drops into silence, and we look with involuntary, startled apprehension toward them.

They are Roger and Mrs.
Huntley.