e
is no use in parleying, come here by me."

He started forward, and grasping her rudely by the wrist, drew her
toward him.

Minny struggled wildly, but his hold was firm.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, as with a violent effort she wrenched her wrist
from his grasp, "for Heaven's sake, Bernard, remember what is due to
your absent wife, what belongs to yourself, what in duty bound you owe
to me. Think of your innocent babe, and be a man once more. I beg you
leave me to myself."

"Nonsense, girl; haven't I a right here? Didn't I marry you once, and
doesn't that make my presence here proper and right? Have you forgotten
that?"

"No, never! but _you_ forgot it. _You_ made the bonds, which united us,
illegal, and took to your heart another bride. You have forgotten this,
too, it would seem, or you would not thus insult me. I am no more to you
now than if those days had never been."

"Zounds! my pretty one, we think differently on that score," said
Wilkins, throwing his arms about her slender waist.

"Let go your hold this instant!" cried Minny, "or I will shriek for
help, and expose you to the neighborhood."

"Shriek as loud as you choose," returned the now determined man; "who,
do you suppose, will hear? Scream, and let me see how well you can do it
up."

Still struggling in his grasp, Minny flung herself upon her knees before
him, and clasped her hands upon her breast.

"Oh, Bernard, have mercy!"

"Yield, then."

"Never!"

"By Heaven, then, I will make you."

Tightening his clasp about her with one arm, with the other he drew a
pistol from his side-pocket, and presented it at her forehead.

"How now?"

"Oh, Bernard, is this the sacred charge that Della left you?"

"Do you give up?"

"No, no! with my latest breath, no!"

"Then I shall fire."

"Fire, then! here is my heart, fire! I would sooner die a thousand
deaths, than have my mistress think I was so base a thing as you would
make me. You never shall dishonor her while Minny has power to prevent
it."

Surely a demon had crept into Bernard's heart, as he stood an instant,
with fascinated eye, gazing on the young girl, as she knelt in all her
fearful beauty before him. He seemed to have lost entirely all control
over himself, and with excited mien listened to the echo of those last
words. It was but a second's pause, yet it embraced an eternity; the
fatal trigger was drawn, by an impulse he could not withstand, and Minny
fell backward on the floor, wit