and with a muttered curse
paused opposite her.

"And _could_ you have been her companion so long, without perceiving the
strength and pride and tenderness of the woman who gave up all hoping to
keep the love you no doubt ardently expressed? Ah! if you could have
seen her as she was when I found her!"

"How was I to know she was staking her gold against my counters?"
returned De Burgh, obstinately, though a dark flush passed over his face
at Katherine's words.

"Lord de Burgh! I did not think you could be so cruel," cried Katherine,
rising. "I will not speak to you any longer."

"Cruel!" he exclaimed, placing himself between her and the door. "How
can I be just or generous, when this most unfortunate encounter has put
me in such a hopeless position? Katherine, will you let this miserable
mistake of the past rob me of my best hopes, my most ardently cherished
desires----"

"It is but two or three years since you spoke in the same tone, possibly
the same words, to Rachel! At least, knowing her as I do, I feel sure
she would have yielded to no common amount of persuasion. She was mad,
weak to a degree to listen to you; but she was alone, and love is so
sweet."

"It is," cried De Burgh, passionately. "Why will you turn from love as
true, as intense as ever was offered to woman, merely because I let
myself fall into an error but too common--"

"Is it not a mere accident of our respective positions that you happen
to seek me as your _wife_?" said Katherine, a slight curl on her lip;
"and how can I feel sure that in time you will not weary of me as you
did of her?"

"The cases are utterly unlike. So long as the world lasts, men and women
too will act as Rachel Trant and I did; Nature is too strong for social
laws and religious maxims."

"And you said you had never done anything to be ashamed of?" she
exclaimed, bitterly.

"Nor have I!" said De Burgh, stoutly, "if I were tried by the standard
of our world. How can you know--how can you judge?"

"I do not judge, I have no right to judge," said Katherine, brokenly. "I
only know that, when I saw your eyes meet Rachel's I felt a great gulf
had suddenly opened between us, a gulf that cannot be bridged. I do not
understand and cannot judge, as you say, and I am sorry for you too; but
if life is to be this miserable shuffling of chances, this jumble of
injustice, I would rather die than live. No, Lord de Burgh, I _will_
go."

"Good Heavens! Katherine, you are trembling