arcia, with some difficulty, was able
to say, through her chattering teeth,--

"You seem to take a deep interest in this weak-minded person."

"I do,--the deepest. I am the man."

She rose to her feet, and, looking scornfully down upon him,
exclaimed,--

"Then you acknowledge yourself a villain!--not from premeditation, which
would give your baseness some dignity, but a weakly fool, so tossed
about by Fate that he is made a villain without either desire or
resistance!"

"You may overwhelm me with reproaches; I am prepared for them; I deserve
them. But God only knows through what a season of torture I have passed
to come to this determination."

"A very ingenious story, Mr. Greenleaf! Do you suppose that the world
will believe it, the day after our losses? Do you expect me to believe
it, even?"

"I told you that I had not heard of the failure. I am in the habit of
being believed."

"For instance, when you vowed that you loved me, and me only!"

"You may spare your taunts. But, to show you how mercenary I am, let me
assure you that the woman to whom my word is pledged, and to whom I must
return, is without any property or expectations."

"Very well, Sir," said Marcia, rubbing her hands, in the endeavor to
conceal her agitation; "we need not waste words. After what you have
told me, I could only despise such a whiffler,--a scrap of refuse iron
at the mercy of any magnet,--a miller dashing into every fight. A lover
so helpless must needs have some new passional attraction--that is the
phrase, I believe--with every changing moon. The man I love should be
made of different stuff." She drew her figure up proudly, and her lips
curled like a beautiful fiend's. "He should bury the disgraceful secret,
if he had it, in his heart, and carry it to his grave. He would not cry
out like a boy with a cut finger."

"Precisely, Miss Sandford. And for that reason you would be no mate for
me. My wife must have no skeletons in her closet."

"Men generally claim the monopoly of those agreeable toys, I believe."

"Love is impossible where there are concealments. A secret is like a
worm in the heart of an apple, and nothing but rottenness and corruption
follow."

"Fortunately, you harbor none. You have turned your heart inside out,
like a peddler's pack,--and a gratifying display it made! I am more than
satisfied."

"The tone you have adopted is a warning to me to stop. I wish to bandy
no epithets, or reproaches. I came sorro