me still.
Love can not be so quickly unlearned. It is ambition that tempted you
from me--that love of gold that always cursed your weak nature!" he
returned, scornfully, stinging her to retort, angrily:

"What then? You can not help yourself! A girl may take back her promise
if she will, and there is no law to make her marry when she does not
choose!"

He tightened his clasp on her wrists till she sobbed with pain, and bent
his dark face, distorted with demoniac rage, close to hers, hissing:

"And with the poor excuse that there is no law against it, you break a
human heart and wreck a human life as ruthlessly as you would trample a
flower springing in your path. Are you not afraid?"

"Afraid--of what?" she murmured, uneasily; and her fair face, as the
moonlight gleamed on it down through the leaves, was ghastly with sudden
fear.

"Of--me!" he answered, with a mocking laugh that made her very blood run
cold, as he continued: "I am tempted to kill you for your falsity, but
not yet!--that is, I will wait till I see how things turn out. Perhaps,"
mockingly, "you will tell me if you expect to marry Lovelace Ellsworth?"

She faltered:

"No; he is engaged to my cousin."

"Are you speaking the truth?"

"Yes," she sobbed, nervously.

His midnight eyes flashed dangerously as he answered, menacingly:

"I hope that you are, and it will be well for you if you are, for, mind
you, Ela Craye, there is, as you say, no law to punish you for what you
have done to me, yet I mean to take justice into my own hands. You may
never be mine, but I swear no other man shall ever possess you. Remember
this that I tell you now: In the hour that you wed another, there will
be murder done! Either your life or my rival's shall pay the forfeit for
what you have done!"

"How dare you threaten me? Let me go! I--I--"

Ela began to sob hysterically, and then he caught her in his arms,
clasping her fiercely, and kissing her in a sort of frenzy.

"One more kiss--for old time's sake! Do you remember how sweet our love
used to be, Ela? You shall never forget it! I seal the memory of it on
your brow with these last kisses fiery with my heart's passion! Nay, you
dare not scream! The crowd would come rushing here, and you would not
like to have them find you here in my arms!"

But Ela's fear of him made her frantic, and she began to shriek, though
he stifled the sound with his kisses. Then sudden steps crashed through
the undergrowth, and a man