cried Paul, "for pity's sake, hush! for your words only prove to
me more plainly that you are like the rest of the world, and that want
of success is a pernicious crime in your eyes. You once had confidence
in me, and then you spoke in a very different strain."

"Once indeed! but then I did not know--"

"No, Rose, it was not what you were then ignorant of; but it was that in
those days you loved me."

"Great heavens! I ask you, have I left one stone unturned? Have I
not gone from publisher to publisher to sell those songs of my own
composing--those songs that you sing so well? I have endeavored to get
pupils. What fresh efforts can I try? What would _you_ do, were you in
my place? Tell me, I beg you."

And as Paul spoke, he grew more and more excited, while Rose still
maintained her manner of exasperating coolness.

"I know not," she replied, after a brief pause; "but if I were a man, I
do not think I would permit the woman, for whom I pretended that I had
the most sincere affection, to be in want of the actual necessities of
life. I would strain every effort to obtain them."

"I have no trade; I am no mechanic," broke in Paul passionately.

"Then I would learn one. Pray how much does a man earn who climbs the
ladder with a bricklayer's hod upon his shoulders? It may be hard work,
I know, but surely the business is not difficult to learn. You have, or
say you have, great musical talents. I say nothing about them; but had
I any vocal powers and if there was not a morsel to eat in the house,
I would go and sing in the taverns or even in the public streets, and
would earn money, and care little for the means by which I made it."

"When you say those things, you seem to forget that I am an honest man."

"One would really suppose that I had suggested some questionable act to
you. Your reply, Paul, plainly proves to me that you are one of those
who, for want of determination, fall, helpless, by the wayside in the
journey of life. They flaunt their rags and tatters in the eyes of the
world, and with saddened hearts and empty stomachs utter the boast,
'I am an honest man.' Do you think that, in order to be rich, you must
perforce be a rogue? This is simple imbecility."

She uttered this tirade in clear and vibrant accents, and her eyes
gleamed with the fire of savage resolution. Her nature was one of those
cruel and energetic ones, which lead a woman to hurl a man from the
brink of the abyss to which she had conducted