t of the town, but a passing visitor; and his
intention had been, as he has since told me, to leave the place on the
following day. But the dart which had pierced my breast had not glanced
entirely aside from his, and he remained, as he declared, to see what
there was in this little country-girl's face to make it so
unforgettable. We met first on the beach and afterwards under the strip
of pines which separate our cottage from the sand mounds, and though I
have no reason to believe he came to these interviews with any honest
purpose or deep sincerity of feeling, it is certain he exerted all his
powers to make them memorable to me, and that, in doing so, he awoke
some of the fire in his own breast which he took such wicked pleasure in
arousing in mine.

"In fact he soon showed that this was so, for I could take no step from
the house without encountering him; and the one indelible impression
remaining to me from those days is the expression his face wore as, one
sunny afternoon, he laid my hand on his arm and drew me away to have a
look at the lake booming on the beach below us. There was no love in it
as I understand love now, but the passion which informed it almost
amounted to intoxication, and if such a passion can be understood
between a man already cultivated and a girl who hardly knew how to read,
it may, in a measure, account for what followed.

"My father, who was no fool, and who saw the selfish quality in this
attractive lover of mine, was alarmed by our growing intimacy. Taking an
opportunity when we were both in a more sensible mood than common, he
put the case before Mr. Randolph in a very decided way. He told him that
either he must marry me at once or quit seeing me altogether. No delay
was to be considered and no compromise allowed.

"As my father was a man with whom no one ever disputed, John Randolph
prepared to leave the town, declaring that he could marry no one at that
stage of his career. But before he could carry out his intention, the
old intoxication returned, and he came back in a fever of love and
impatience to marry me.

"Had I been older or more experienced in the ways of the world, I would
have known that such passion as this evinced was short-lived; that there
is no witchery in a smile lasting enough to make men like him forget the
lack of those social graces to which they are accustomed. But I was mad
with happiness, and was unconscious of any cloud lowering upon our
future till the d