! Let him! It is
my purpose to make him suffer, and he shall suffer! In that I will be
true to my oath; I will make of this weakness a scourge! No one will
know what it costs me! No one will know how sweet to me are the words
which I train my lips to answer with scorn! Never a tender look or word
shall he gain from me; yet this much can I promise myself. No one else
shall ever be dear to me! No other lover will I have save his memory! He
thinks that I dislike him! He shall think so to the end! He shall never
know--never!

I took up a novel this morning, and tried to read, but could not. Ah!
those fools who write about a woman's love--what do they know about it?
Nothing! less than nothing! I, Margharita, am nineteen years old, and I
love! I would die this moment cheerfully, sooner than he should know it!
Yet, though I shall never hear one word of love from his lips, or rest
for one moment in his arms; though I live to be an old woman, I would
starve, beg, die, sooner than give myself to any other man. To have
loved, even though the love be unknown, and to have been loved, even
though it be silently, is sweet to a woman. She can crystallize the
memory in her heart and pass through life sad, perhaps, yet content,
cold and deaf to all other voices. They say that a man is not like this.
Perhaps! A woman's nature is finer than a man's--less passionate, but
more devoted.

To-night, as the dressing bell rang, and I was coming upstairs to change
my gown for dinner, he met me in the hall and offered me--a spray of
white hyacinths! How my fingers shook as I took them! White hyacinths!
If he had only known what he had been doing. White hyacinths! What was
that oath--"Vengeance upon traitors." Does she remember it, I wonder? I
think that she does, for I wore them in the bosom of my dress, and she
turned pale when she glanced at them. She looked at me as though she
were afraid. Does my face remind her of the past, I wonder? She told me
that my features are the features of the Marionis, and I know that I am
like my mother! I am glad of it! I would have my face bring a pang to
her heart every time she looks at it. That is justice!

She looked, as though fascinated, at the bunch of white flowers in my
bosom. I took care to let her know that Lord Lumley had given them to
me. I am never so gracious to him as in her presence.

"By the by, mother," he said, during a pause in the conversation, "I
have noticed that, while you use every ot