d the sense of personal humiliation in
her heart for life.

Christal walked up to her. "Now tell me--for I _will_ know--what has
passed between you and--him who just now went hence."

"Lyle Derwent?"

"Yes. Repeat every word--every word!"

"Why so? You are not acting kindly towards me," said Olive, trying to
resume her wonted dignity, but still speaking in a placable, quiet tone.
"My dear Christal, you are younger than I, and have scarcely a right to
question me thus."

"Right! When it comes to that, where is yours? How dare you suffer Lyle
Derwent to kneel at your feet? How dare you, I say!"

"Christal--Christal! Hush!"

"I will not! I will speak. I wish every word were a dagger to stab
you--wicked, wicked woman! who have come between me and my lover--for he
is my lover, and I love him."

"You love him?"

"You stole him from me--you bewitched him with your vile flatteries. How
else could he have turned from _me_ to _you_?"

And lifting her graceful, majestic height, she looked contemptuously on
poor shrinking Olive--ay, as her father--the father of both--had done
before. Olive remembered the time well. For a moment a sense of cruel
wrong pressed down her compassion, but it rose again. Who was most
injured, most unhappy--she, or the young creature who stood before her,
shaken by the storm of rage.

She stretched out her hands entreatingly.--"Christal, do listen. Indeed,
indeed, I am innocent. I shall never marry that poor boy--never! I have
just told him so."

"He has asked you, then?"--and the girl almost gnashed her teeth--"Then
he has deceived me. No, I will not believe that. It is you who are
deceiving me now. If he loved you, you were sure to love him."

"What am I to do--how am I to convince you? How hard this is!"

"Hard! What, then, must it be to me? You did not think this passion was
in me, did you? You judged me by that meek cold-blooded heart of yours.
But mine is all burning--burning! Woe be to those who kindled the fire."

She began to walk to and fro, sweeping past Olive with angry strides.
She looked, from head to foot, her mother's child. Hate and love,
melting and mingling together, flashed from her black, southern eyes.
But in the close mouth there was an iron will, inherited with her
northern blood. Suddenly she stopped, and confronted Olive.

"You consider me a mere girl. But I learned to be a woman early. I had
need."

"Poor child!--poor child!"

"How dare you pity me? You th