ht. You and I, and
Merthyr! Nothing but Austrian shot shall part us."

"And so we make up a pretty dream!" interjected Georgiana. "The Austrian
shot, I think, will be fired by one who is now in the Austrian service,
or who will soon be."

"Wilfrid?" Emilia called out. "No; that is what I am going to stop. Why
did I not tell you so at first? But I never know what I say or do when I
am with you, and everything seems chance. I want to see him to prevent
him from doing that. I can."

"Why should you?" asked Georgiana; and one to whom the faces of the two
had been displayed at that moment would have pronounced them a hostile
couple.

"Why should I prevent him?" Emilia doled out the question slowly, and
gave herself no further thought of replying to it.

Apparently Georgiana understood the significance of this odd silence: she
was perhaps touched by it. She said, "You feel that you have a power over
him. You wish to exercise it. Never mind wherefore. If you do--if you
try, and succeed--if, by the aid of this love presupposed to exist, you
win him to what you require of him--do you honestly think the love is
then immediately to be dropped?"

Emilia meditated. She caught up her voice hastily. "I think so. Yes. I
hope so. I mean it to be."

"With a noble lover, Emilia. Not with a selfish one. In showing him the
belief you have in your power over him, you betray that he has power over
you. And it is to no object. His family, his position, his prospects--all
tell you that he cannot marry you if he would. And he is, besides,
engaged--"

"Let her suffer!" Emilia's eyes flashed.

"Ah!" and Georgiana thought, "Have I come upon your nature at last?"

However it might be, Emilia was determined to show it.

"She took my lover from me, and I say, let her suffer! I would not hurt
her myself--I would not lay my finger on her: but she has eyes like blue
stones, and such a mouth!--I think the Austrian executioner has one like
it. If she suffers, and goes all dark as I did, she will show a better
face. Let her keep my lover. He is not mine, but he was; and she took him
from me. That woman cannot feed on him as I did. I know she has no hunger
for love. He will look at those blue bits of ice, and think of me. I told
him so. Did I not tell him that in Devon? I saw her eyelids move as fast
as I spoke. I think I look on Winter when I see her lips. Poor, wretched
Wilfrid!"

Emilia half-sobbed this exclamation out. "I don't wish to hur