y
seriously.

"Just so;--and as I have chosen to be honest I have told him
everything. But I had my revenge first."

"I would have said nothing."

"You would have recommended--delicacy! No doubt you think that women
should be delicate, let them suffer what they may. A woman should
not let it be known that she has any human nature in her. I had him
on the hip, and for a moment I used my power. He had certainly done
me a wrong. He had asked for my love,--and with the delicacy which
you commend, I had not at once grasped at all that such a request
conveyed. Then, as he told me so frankly, 'he changed his mind!' Did
he not wrong me?"

"He should not have raised false hopes."

"He told me that--he had changed his mind. I think I loved him then
as nearly as ever I did,--because he looked me full in the face.
Then,--I told him I had never cared for him, and that he need have
nothing on his conscience. But I doubt whether he was glad to hear
it. Men are so vain! I have talked too much of myself. And so you
are to be the Duke's son-in-law. And she will have hundreds of
thousands."

"Thousands perhaps, but I do not think very much about it. I feel
that he will provide for her."

"And that you, having secured her, can creep under his wing like
an additional ducal chick. It is very comfortable. The Duke will
be quite a Providence to you. I wonder that all young gentlemen do
not marry heiresses;--it is so easy. And you have got your seat in
Parliament too! Oh, your luck! When I look back upon it all it seems
so hard to me! It was for you,--for you that I used to be anxious.
Now it is I who have not an inch of ground to stand upon." Then he
approached her and put out his hand to her. "No," she said, putting
both her hands behind her back, "for God's sake let there be no
tenderness. But is it not cruel? Think of my advantages at that
moment when you and I agreed that our paths should be separate. My
fortune then had not been made quite shipwreck by my father and
brother. I had before me all that society could offer. I was called
handsome and clever. Where was there a girl more likely to make her
way to the top?"

"You may do so still."

"No;--no;--I cannot. And you at least should not tell me so. I did
not know then the virulence of the malady which had fallen on me. I
did not know then that, because of you, other men would be abhorrent
to me. I thought that I was as easy-hearted as you have proved
yourself."

"How cr