fiend in female form?"
exclaimed the dismayed girl.

"I do not know. I may be so. I think Satan has taken possession of me
since my betrothal. At least I feel that I could be capable of great
crimes to secure great ends," said Claudia recklessly.

"And, oh, Heaven! the opportunity will be surely afforded you, if you do
not repent. Satan takes good care to give his servants the fullest
freedom to develop their evil. Oh, Claudia, for the love of Heaven, stop
where you are! go no further. Your next step on this sinful road may
make retreat impossible. Break off this marriage at once. Better the
broken troth--better the nine days' wonder--than the perjured bride, and
the loveless, sinful nuptials! You said you were ambitious. Claudia!"
here Bee's voice grew almost inaudible from intense passion--"Claudia!
you do not know--you cannot know what it costs me to say what I am about
to say to you now; but--I will say it: You love Ishmael. Well, he loves
you--ah! far better than you love him, or than you are capable of loving
anyone. For you all his toils have been endured, all his laurels won.
Claudia! be proud of this great love; it is a hero's love--a poet's
love. Claudia! you have received much adulation in your life, and you
will receive much more; but you never have received, and you never will,
so high an honor as you have in Ishmael's love. It is a crown of glory
to your life. You are ambitious! Well, wait for him; give him a few
short years and he will attain honors, not hereditary, but all his own.
He will reach a position that the proudest woman may be proud to share;
and his wife shall take a higher rank among American matrons than the
wife of a mere nobleman can reach in England. And his untitled name,
like that of Caesar, shall be a title in itself."

"Bee! Bee! you wring my heart in two. You drive me mad. It cannot be, I
tell you! It can never be. He may rise--there is no doubt but that he
will! But let him rise ever so high, I cannot be his wife--his wife!
Horrible! I came of a race of which all the men were brave, and all the
women pure! And he--"

"Is braver than the bravest man of your race! purer than the purest
woman!" interrupted Bee fervently.

"He is the child of shame, and his heritage is dishonor! He bears his
mother's maiden name, and she was--the scorn of his sex and the reproach
of ours! And this is the man you advise me, Claudia Merlin, whose hand
is sought in marriage by the heir of one of the