; you can hardly stand. I am
a brute to keep you; but I cannot help clutching my only chance of
happiness. You are an angel! Dispose of me as you will; but in mercy
give me some hope. I'll wait; I'll do anything."

"Oh, no, no. It is impossible. I am so fond of _her_; and you will find
many to whom your past will be nothing; for me it is irrevocable. The
world seems intolerable; let me go;" and she burst into such bitter sobs
that her whole frame shook.

"I must not keep you now; but I shall _not_ give you up. I will write.
Oh, Katherine, you would not destroy me!" He seized and passionately
kissed her hand, which she tore from him, and fled from the room.

When Rachel Trant escaped from the presence of her dearest friend and
her ex-lover, she could scarcely see or stand. Thankful not to meet
anyone, she hastily left the house, and, somewhat revived by the air,
she made her way to a secluded part of the Kensington Gardens. Here she
found a seat, and, still palpitating with the shock she had sustained,
strove to reduce the chaotic whirl of her thoughts to something like
order.

She divined by instinct why De Burgh was at Mrs. Needham's. She knew,
how she could not tell, that he was seeking Katherine as eagerly as he
had sought herself; but with what a different object! The sight of De
Burgh was as the thrust of a poisoned dagger through the delicate veins
and articulations of her moral system. To see the dark face and sombre
eyes she had loved so passionately--had!--still loved!--was almost
physical agony. It was as if some beloved form had been brought back
from another world, but animated by a spirit that knew her not, regarded
her not at all. Oh, the bitterness of such an estrangement, of this
expulsion from the paradise of warmth and tenderness where she had been
cherished for a while--a heavenly place which should know her no more.

"I brought it all upon myself," was the sentence of her strong stern
sense. "Losing self-respect, what hold can any woman have upon a
lover?--yet how many men are faithful even to death without the legal
tie! I do not love him now, but how fondly, how intensely I loved the
man I thought he was! Oh, fool, fool, fool, to believe that I could ever
tighten my hold upon a man who had gained all he wished unconditionally!
I have deserved all--all."

Yet she had no hatred against the real De Burgh, neither had she any
angelic desire to forgive him, or to do him good or convert him; what