l nature call for a stronger mate, a more
concentrated temperament, a--a----

"I thought I saw in one of my dark hours my father rising up from his
grave to curse me. Oh! he might curse on if----

"What have I said about no man knowing? Bartow knows. In his dumbness,
his deafness, he has surprised my secret, and shows that he has done so
by his peering looks, his dissatisfied ways, and a jealousy at which I
could shout aloud in mirth, if I were not more tempted to shriek aloud
in torment. A dumb serving-man, picked up I have almost forgotten where,
jealous of my weakness for John Poindexter's daughter! He was never
jealous of my feeling for Evelyn. Yet till the day I dared fate by
seeking out and looking for the second time upon the woman whose charms
I had scorned, her name often resounded through these rooms, and my eyes
dwelt upon but one spot, and that was where her picture hangs in the
woeful beauty which has become my reproach.

"I have had a great surprise. The starling, which has been taught to
murmur Evelyn's name, to-day shrieked out, 'Eva! Eva!' My first impulse
was to wring its neck, my next to take it from its cage and hide it in
my bosom. But I did neither. I am still a man.

"Bartow will wring that bird's neck if I do not. This morning I caught
him with his hand on the cage and a murderous light in his eye, which I
had no difficulty in understanding. Yet he cannot hear the word the
wretched starling murmurs. He only knows it is a word, a name, and he is
determined to suppress it. Shall I string the cage up out of this old
fellow's reach? His deafness, his inability to communicate with others,
the exactness with which he obeys my commands as given him by my colored
slides, his attention to my every wish, consequent upon his almost
animal love for my person, are necessary to me now, while the bird--Ah!
there it goes again, 'Eva! Eva!'

"Is it hate or love I feel, abhorrence or passion? Love would seek to
save, but I have no thought of saving her, since she has acknowledged
her love for Thomas, and since he--Oh, it is not now for Evelyn's sake I
plan revenge, but for my own! These nights and days of torture--the
revelation I have had of my own nature--the consent I was forced to give
to a marriage which means bliss to them and anguish beyond measure to
me--all this calls for vengeance, and they will not escape, these two. I
have laid my plans deep. I have provided for every contingency. It has
taken tim