I joined him a few minutes later.

"Are you ill, George?" I asked. "I felt anxious about you when I saw you
leave the parlor so suddenly. Have you had one of your spells?"

"A very severe spell, Miriam; but not of the usual kind." I understood
him now. There was a dry anguish in the very tone of his voice that
smote heavily on my ear, yet I felt impatient with him, provoked beyond
endurance.

"George, you should be more of a man," I said, with asperity, "than to
yield in this way to every impulse that besets you. Your whims are hard
to bear with lately, and scarcely worth understanding, I am convinced."

"Would I were more or less of a man!" he answered, meekly. "I should
suffer less, probably."

"Tell me what _does ail_ you, George Gaston," I added, with a sudden
revulsion of feeling, caused by his patient, deprecating manner. "You
know you always have my warmest sympathy, and affection--sisterly
interest."

"Ah, Miriam, it is that! You love that man; yes, you love him a
thousand-fold more than you have ever loved me. I suspected it before--I
know it now; and I would rather see you floating a corpse on the river,
with your dead face turned up to heaven, than married to that man, I
hate him so!"

The last words were ground between his set teeth, and he trembled with
passion.

"George," I said, "you are still a child in years, in strength, in
stature! I, but a few months older, am already a woman in age,
experience, feeling, character. It is always thus with persons of our
sexes who contract childish friendships--one outgrows the other. Then
there are bitterness, reproach, suffering, resentment, on one part or
the other. But is this just? Remember Byron and Miss Chaworth--how was
it with them? He grasped too much, and lost every thing; he embittered
his whole nature, his whole life, for the want of common-sense to guide
him; but, with almost as much genius--more, in some things, than he
possessed--you HAVE this governing principle. I know my dearest George
will do me justice. I shall be an old, faded woman when you are of an
age to marry--unlovely in your eyes, George,"--I hesitated. "I have
always hoped you would be our Mabel's husband. You know you have
promised me." I smiled tearfully this time.

He bounded off the bench, interrupting me with a low cry. "Do not mock
me, Miriam Monfort," he exclaimed, "if you can do no better. My God! a
baby of five years old suggested as a wife by you, my idol! Oh, yes,
wi