noticing my existence, or honoring with a reply the words of wrath and
confusion which, in my misery and despair, I threw after him."

CHAPTER VIII.

A SUDDEN BETROTHAL.

"As for myself," continued Mark Felt, "I stood crushed, and after the
first torrent of emotion had swept by, lifted my head like a drowning
man and looked wildly about, as if, in the catastrophe which overwhelmed
me, all nature must have changed, and I should find myself in a strange
place. The sight of the door through which Marah Leighton had passed
stung me into tortured existence again. With a roar of passion and hate
I sprang toward it, burst it open, and passed in. Instantly silence and
semi-darkness fell upon me, through which I felt her presence exhaling
its wonted perfume, though I could see nothing but the dim shapes of
unaccustomed articles of furniture grouped against a window that was
almost completely closed from the light of day.

"Advancing, I gazed upon chair after chair. They were all empty, and not
till I reached the further corner did I find her, thrown at full length
upon a couch, with her head buried in her arms, and motionless as any
stone. Confused, appalled even, for I had never seen her otherwise than
erect and mocking, I stumbled back, and would have fled, but that she
suddenly arose, and flinging back her head, gave me one look, which I
felt rather than saw, and bursting into a peal of laughter, called me to
account for disturbing the first minute of rest she had known that day.

"I was dumfounded. If she had consulted all her wiles, and sought for
the one best way to silence me, she could not have chanced on one surer
than this. I gazed at her quite helpless, and forgot--actually
forgot--what had drawn me into her presence, and only asked to get a
good glimpse of her face, which, in the dim light, was more like that of
a spirit than of a woman--a mocking spirit, in whom no love could lodge,
whatever my fancy might have pictured in the delirium of the moment that
had just passed.

"She seemed to comprehend my mood, for she flung back the curtain and
drew herself up to her full height before me.

"'Did you think I was playing the coquette?' she asked. 'Well, perhaps I
was; women like me must have their amusements; but--'

"Oh! the languishment in that _but_. I shut my eyes as I heard it. I
could neither bear its sound, nor the sight of her face.

"'You listened to him. He was making love to you--he, the pro