es
over him as he recognizes the heroine of his own romance, and hastily
infers from the circumstances in which he finds her, that he has been
the victim of a double deception. The truth gradually shapes itself in
his mind; but meanwhile the older man has grasped the situation, and
determined to make capital of it--to avenge his rebuff and to rid
himself of his debt at the same time. He begs the lady to leave the room
for a few moments, handing her, for her entertainment, the inn "album,"
over which he and his friend were exchanging jokes a few hours ago; and
in which he has, at this moment, inscribed some lines. The purport of
these is that this young man loves her; and that unless she responds to
his advances, the secret of her past life shall be revealed to her
husband.

Alone with the younger man, he exhausts himself in coarse libels against
the woman, of whom that morning only he was speaking, as the lost
opportunity of his life; bids him ask of her what he desires, and have
it; and calls on him to admit, that in preserving him from marrying her,
and placing her nevertheless at his disposal, he will have earned his
gratitude, and paid the value of the ten thousand pounds.

When the woman returns, the album in her hand, the calm of death is upon
her. She has lived prepared for this emergency, provided also with the
means of escaping from it. But she will not die without entreating her
young admirer to shake off, before it is too late, the evil influence to
which both, though in different ways, have succumbed; and her dignity,
her kindness, the instinctive reverence, and now chivalrous pity, with
which she has inspired him carry all before them. He renews his
declaration; implores her to accept him as her husband, if she is
free--her friend if she is not; her husband even if the relation she is
living in be something less than marriage; to exact any delay, to impose
any probation, so that in the end she accepts him.

She replies by putting her hand into his, _to remain there_, as she
says, _till death shall part them_. The older man, who has just
re-entered the room, congratulates them on having arrived at so
sensible an understanding. The woman, now very pale, contrives to point
to the fatal entry in the album which she still grasps; and asks her
friend--after quoting the writer's words--how, but in her own way, the
mouth of such a one could have been stopped.

"So," exclaims the youth. And he flies at the man's