h I held grew cold as ice. She drew it away and looked at
me haughtily, but I saw that I had frightened her.

"'Edwin Urquhart is nothing to me,' came in low but emphatic tones from
her lips. 'I did not want to marry any one, and I said so. It would be
better if more brides hesitated on the threshold of matrimony instead of
crossing it to their ruin.'

"I could have killed her, but I subdued myself. I knew that I had lost
her; that in another moment she would be gone, never to enter my
presence again as my promised wife; but I uttered no word, honored her
with no glance; merely made her a low bow and stepped back, as I
thought, master of myself again.

"But in that final instant one last arrow entered my breast, and darting
back to her side, I whispered, in what must have been a terrible voice:

"'Go, falsest of the false! I have done with you! But if you have lied
to me--if you think to trip up Edwin Urquhart in his duty, and break
Honora Dudleigh's noble heart, and shame my honor--I will kill you as I
would a snake in the grass! You shall never approach the altar with
another as nearly as you have this day with me!'

"And with the last mockery of a look, in which every detail of her
beauty flashed with almost an unbearable insistence upon my eyes, I
turned my back upon her and strode toward the outer door."

CHAPTER XI.

HONORA.

"But I did not pass it. A sound struck my ear. It was that of a
smothered sob, and it came from the room where I had first seen Miss
Dudleigh. Instantly a vision of that sweet form bowed in misery struck
upon my still palpitating heart; and moved at a grief I knew to be well
nigh as bitter as my own, I stopped before the half-closed door, and
gently pushed it open.

"Miss Dudleigh at once advanced to meet me. Tears were on her cheeks,
but she walked very firmly, and took my hand with an inquiry in her soft
eyes that almost drove me distracted.

"'What shall I do?' I cried to myself. 'Tell this woman to beware, or
leave her to fight her battles alone?' No answer came from my inmost
soul. I was appalled by her weakness and my own selfishness, and bowed
my head and said nothing.

"'A strange ending to the hopes of this day,' were the words that
thereupon fell from her lips. 'Is--is--Marah ill, or did one of her
strange moods overtake her?'

"'I do not understand Miss Leighton,' I replied. 'The time I have spent
in the study of her character has been wasted. I shall never u