rs."

Then, resting her left hand which held the reliquary on her hip, she
added with hasty vehemence:

"So be it. Go away; go wherever you please! If I find you under this roof
to-morrow at noon, you thankless, wicked girl, I will have you turned out
into the streets by the guard. I hate you--for once I will ease my poor,
tormented heart--I loathe you; your very existence is an offence to me
and brings misfortune on me and on all of us; and besides--besides, I
should prefer to keep the emeralds we have left."

This last and cruelest taunt, which she had brought out against her
better feelings, seemed to have relieved her soul of a hundred-weight of
care; she drew a deep breath, and turning to Philippus, went on far more
quietly and rationally:

"As for you, Philip, my husband needs you. You know well what we have
offered you and you know George's liberal hand. Perhaps you will think
better of it, and will learn to perceive. . ."

"I! . . ." said the leech with a lofty smile. "Do you really know me so
little? Your husband, I am ready to admit, stands high in my esteem, and
when he wants me he will no doubt send for me. But never again will I
cross this threshold uninvited, or enter a house where right is trodden
underfoot, where defenceless innocence is insulted and abandoned to
despair.

"You may stare in astonishment! Your son has desecrated his father's
judgment-seat, and the blood of guiltless Hiram is on his
head.--You--well, you may still cling to your emeralds. Paula will not
touch them; she is too high-souled to tell you who it is that you would
indeed do well to lock up in the deepest dungeon-cell! What I have heard
from your lips breaks every tie that time had knit between us. I do not
demand that my friends should be wealthy, that they should have any
attractions or charm, any special gifts of mind or body; but we must meet
on common ground: that of honorable feeling. That you did not bring into
the world, or you have lost it; and from this hour I am a stranger to you
and never wish to see you again, excepting by the side of your husband
when he requires me."

He spoke the last words with such immeasurable dignity that Neforis was
startled and bereft of all self-control. She had been treated as a wretch
worthy of utter scorn by a man beneath her in rank, but whom she always
regarded as one of the most honest, frank and pure-minded she had ever
known; a man indispensable to her husband, because he knew