why you seek to prolong
it, and why, if you so loathe Adele, you persecute me by following her?'

''Because I am resolved on two points--to see her, and to learn from her
where she has secreted our child.'

''Unless you pledge yourself, Mr. Percival, not to make any further
attempt to see Adele, you shall not, if I can prevent, leave this room
alive.'

''Oh! oh! finding I won't fight, you fancy you can frighten me by
threats of assassination. It is rather creditable to your ingenuity, Mr.
Livermore, but I had provided for such a contingency. The United States
Minister has been apprized of my arrival, and I left certain papers with
his Secretary to be opened to-morrow, in case I should not return by
noon, explaining our mutual relations very concisely yet definitely.
Now you know that the Mexican idea of justice, though lenient in the
extreme to natives, is just as extremely severe to foreigners, so that I
would hardly advise you to tempt the gallows, unless, indeed, you have
less objection to suicide, for I really think that is the only way you
can possibly cheat the hangman, unless you condescend to allow me to pay
my respects to the American Legation to-morrow, in the forenoon.'

'On the stage, especially in the sanguinary melodrama, it is astonishing
how little respect is paid to the gallows; but somehow in the humbler
walks of every day life, it exercises a very salutary, deterring
influence on a very large class of minds; and I was, therefore, in no
way surprised to hear my neighbor resume the conversation in a tone
decidedly an octave or two lower.

''You have entirely misinterpreted my meaning. I may have thought of
here forcing a quarrel on you, but the commission of the crime you dare
insinuate, never entered my brain. But, now, sir, one last question: Why
do you persist in seeking an interview with the woman you pretend to
hate?'

''Pretend to hate! nay, there is no pretense, I hate, detest, and loathe
her; not because she betrayed me; not because she stained an honorable
name; not because she made me kill her lover; not because she has ruined
my happiness; but because knowing--feeling all this, and more than words
have power to convey--because knowing her infamy and shame, I still,
still love her.'

''_You_ love her still!' cried Arthur. 'Oh! thanks for that one avowal;
that explains fully the bitterness with which you calumniate her.'

''Calumniate her! oh! that were impossible for the very basest