the past or the present, but
something to say of the future. You hold in your hands a letter--a
love-letter, I am sure--a declaration, as I fear--from my nephew, Mr.
Surrey. You will oblige me by at once sitting down, writing a peremptory
and unqualified refusal to his proposal, if he has made you one,--a
refusal that will admit of no hope and no double interpretation,--and
give it into my keeping before I leave this room.'

"When I first alluded to Willie's letter she had crimsoned, but before I
closed she was so white I should have thought her fainting, but for the
fire in her eyes. However, she spoke up clear enough when she said, 'And
what, madam, if I deny your right to dictate any action whatever to me,
however insignificant, and utterly refuse to obey your command?'

"'At your peril do so,' I exclaimed. 'Refuse, and I will write the whole
shameful story, with my own comments; and you may judge for yourself of
the effect it will produce.'

"At that she smiled,--an indescribable sort of smile,--and shut her
fingers on the letter she held,--I could not help thinking as though it
were a human hand. 'Very well, madam, write it. He has already told
me'--

"'That he loves you,' I broke in. 'Do you think he would continue to do
so if he knew what you are?'

"'He knows me as well now,' she answered, 'as he will after reading any
letter of yours.'

"'Incredible!' I exclaimed. 'When he wrote you that, he did not know, he
could not have known, your birth, your race, the taint in your blood. I
will never believe it.'

"'No,' she said, 'I did not say he did. I said he knew _me_; so well, I
think, judging from this,'--clasping his letter with the same curious
pressure I had before noticed,--'that you could scarcely enlighten him
farther. He knows my heart, and soul, and brain,--as I said, he knows
_me_.'

"'O, yes,' I answered,--or rather sneered, for I was uncontrollably
indignant through all this,--'if you mean _that_, very likely. I am not
talking lovers' metaphysics, but practical common-sense. He does not
know the one thing at present essential for him to know; and he will
abandon you, spurn you,--his love turned to scorn, his passion to
contempt,--when he reads what I shall write him if you refuse to do what
I demand!'

"I expected to see her cower before me. Conceive, then, if you can, my
sensations when she cried, 'Stop, madam! Say what you will to me;
insult, outrage me, if you please, and have not the goo