e selfish end, in all I
ever aimed at, and you may cut it out of my bosom with a knife!"

"It is all self!" answered Zenobia with still intenser bitterness.
"Nothing else; nothing but self, self, self! The fiend, I doubt not,
has made his choicest mirth of you these seven years past, and
especially in the mad summer which we have spent together. I see it
now! I am awake, disenchanted, disinthralled! Self, self, self! You
have embodied yourself in a project. You are a better masquerader than
the witches and gypsies yonder; for your disguise is a self-deception.
See whither it has brought you! First, you aimed a death-blow, and a
treacherous one, at this scheme of a purer and higher life, which so
many noble spirits had wrought out. Then, because Coverdale could not
be quite your slave, you threw him ruthlessly away. And you took me,
too, into your plan, as long as there was hope of my being available,
and now fling me aside again, a broken tool! But, foremost and
blackest of your sins, you stifled down your inmost consciousness!--you
did a deadly wrong to your own heart!--you were ready to sacrifice this
girl, whom, if God ever visibly showed a purpose, He put into your
charge, and through whom He was striving to redeem you!"

"This is a woman's view," said Hollingsworth, growing deadly pale,--"a
woman's, whose whole sphere of action is in the heart, and who can
conceive of no higher nor wider one!"

"Be silent!" cried Zenobia imperiously. "You know neither man nor
woman! The utmost that can be said in your behalf--and because I would
not be wholly despicable in my own eyes, but would fain excuse my
wasted feelings, nor own it wholly a delusion, therefore I say it--is,
that a great and rich heart has been ruined in your breast. Leave me,
now. You have done with me, and I with you. Farewell!"

"Priscilla," said Hollingsworth, "come." Zenobia smiled; possibly I
did so too. Not often, in human life, has a gnawing sense of injury
found a sweeter morsel of revenge than was conveyed in the tone with
which Hollingsworth spoke those two words. It was the abased and
tremulous tone of a man whose faith in himself was shaken, and who
sought, at last, to lean on an affection. Yes; the strong man bowed
himself and rested on this poor Priscilla! Oh, could she have failed
him, what a triumph for the lookers-on!

And, at first, I half imagined that she was about to fail him. She
rose up, stood shivering like the