er insisted on
presenting her everywhere as his wife.

Even at courts she had been so presented, though all the terrible
consequences of exposure were sure to ring over the whole of Europe. The
personal danger of the step was-a temptation too strong to resist; and
the altercation and vindication that must follow were ecstasy to him. He
was-pitting himself against the world, and he would back himself on the
issue.

"And, here, where we are now," cried I, "what is to happen if to-morrow
some stranger should arrive from England who knows your story, and feels
he owes it to his host to proclaim it?"

"Is it not too clear what is to happen?" shrieked she; "blood, more
blood,--theirs or his, or both! Just as he struck a young prince at
Baden with a glove across the face, because he stared at me too rudely,
and shot him afterwards; his dearest tie to me is the peril that
attaches to me. Do you not know him, Digby? Do you not know the insolent
disdain with which he refuses to be bound by what other men submit
to; and that when he has said, 'I am ready to stake my life on it,' he
believes he has proved his conviction to be a just one?"

Of my father's means, or what remained to him of fortune, she knew
nothing. They had often been reduced to almost want, and at other times
money would flow freely in, to be wasted and lavished with that careless
munificence that no experiences of privation could ever teach prudence.
We now turned to speculate on what would happen when he came back from
this shooting-party; how he would recognize me.

"I see," cried I: "you suspect he will disown me?"

"Not that, dear Digby," said she, in some confusion, "but he may
require--that is, he may wish you to conform to some plan, some
procedure of his own."

"If this should involve the smallest infraction of what is due to my
mother, I 'll refuse," said I, firmly, "and reject as openly as he dares
to make it."

"And are you ready to face what may follow?"

"If you mean as regards myself, I am quite ready. My father threw me off
years ago, and I am better able to fight the battle of life now than
I was then. I ask nothing of him,--not even his name. If you speak of
other consequences,--of what may ensue when his hosts shall learn the
fraud he has practised on them--" It was only as the fatal word fell from
me that I felt how cruelly I had spoken, and I stopped and took her
hand in mine, saying, "Do not be angry with me, dear friend, that I
ha