im.

"You do not speak," he added, gloomily. "By Heaven, Beatrice, if I
thought you had learned to love another man--if I thought you wanted to
be free from me to marry another--I should go mad mad with jealous
rage! Is it so? Answer me."

She saw a lurid light in his eyes, and shrank from him. He tightened
his grasp upon her arm.

"Answer me!" he cried, hoarsely. "I will know."

Not far from her slept the lover who would have shielded her with his
strong arm--the lover to whom every hair upon her dear head was more
precious than gold or jewels. Not far from her slept the kind, loving
father, who was prouder and fonder of her than of any one on earth.
Gaspar Laurence, who would have died for her, lay at that moment not
far away, awake and thinking of her. Yet in the hour of her deadly
peril, when she stood on the shore of the deep lake, in the fierce
grasp of a half-maddened man, there was no one near to help her or
raise a hand in her defense. But she was no coward, and all the high
spirit of her race rose within her.

"Loosen your grasp, Hugh," she said, calmly; "you pain me."

"Answer me!" he cried. "Where is the ring I gave you?"

He seized both her hands and looked at them; they were firm and
cool--they did not tremble. As his fierce, angry eyes glanced over
them, not a feature of her beautiful face quivered.

"Where is my ring?" he asked. "Answer me, Beatrice."

"I have not worn it lately," she replied. "Hugh, you forget yourself.
Gentlemen do not speak and act in this way."

"I believe I am going mad," he said, gloomily. "I could relinquish my
claim to you, Beatrice for your own sake, but I will never give you up
to be the wife of any other man. Tell me it is not so. Tell me you
have not been so doubly false as to love another, and I will try to do
all you wish."

"Am I to live all my life unloved and unmarried?" she answered,
controlling her angry indignation by a strong effort, "because when I
was a lonely and neglected girl, I fell into your power? I do not ask
such a sacrifice from you. I hope you will love and marry, and be
happy."

"I shall not care," he said, "what happens after I am gone--it will not
hurt my jealous, angry heart then, Beatrice; but I should not like to
think that while you were my promised wife and I was giving you my
every thought, you were loving some one else. I should like to believe
you were true to me while you were my own."

She made no answer, fearing