tire a proof of the disinterested nature of my feelings, could he only
have thought so! It had probably been his intention to test and probe
them in the beginning, and he had succeeded.

He lingered a moment, however, on the threshold, gazing at me earnestly.

"Miriam," he said, reentering and closing the door, "Miriam, I wish I
could be certain of your friendship. I may put it to fiery proof before
long. Can I rely on you to support me then?"

"Claude," I rejoined, gravely, "if I can assist you in any useful or
honorable way, I shall be glad to do so, on general principles alone.
You did not respond fairly to my friendly manifestations in times past,
after--after a certain explanation, and the impulse has died away since
then, I confess. Our future lives can have very little in common, I
imagine."

"Would you not help me to break a loathed chain?" he asked, almost
fiercely. "Bonds are often forced upon a man," he continued, "by the
very reason of his superior strength. It is so hard to resist a pleading
woman! O Miriam! more than any one living, I respect--revere--love--yes,
love you. Pity me! You can assign no secondary reasons now to
professions like these. You are no longer rich--no longer--"

"Miss Kilmansegg, with the golden leg," I interrupted, derisively.
"Truly you surprise me."

"O Miriam! how can you treat me with such heartless levity?" and he
wrung his hands bitterly. "I am pushed to desperation already. I never
knew, until I lost you, what you were to me; how superior to all other
women, how pure, how unworldly, how strong, how rich in all mental and
womanly endowments! Hear me, Miriam," and he attempted to take my hand,
an error of which he was soon made conscious.

"Claude Bainrothe," I said, sternly, "I can tolerate you on one
condition alone--that you respect me. You cease to do this, you, the
betrothed husband of another woman! the moment you sully my ear with
your addresses, your effusions of sentiment. They are no more, I know;
but even these I will not endure from you, nor yet from--" I hesitated;
a hated name had risen to my lips, but I repressed it. He, the son,
surely was not the father's keeper.

"You do me injustice; before Heaven, you do!" he exclaimed, flinging
back his long curling locks impetuously, by a toss of his superb head,
and bending his blazing eyes upon me. "Hear me, Miriam, I hold the clew
to a secret by means of which I can compel wealth to flow back to your
feet, in th