t one
thought, known but one enthusiasm, retain in this breast of iron a spot
however secret, however small, which any woman, least of all his
daughter, could reach? Never! I am the prey of frenzy or the butt of
devils. Yet only the inhabitants of a more celestial sphere brighten
around me when I think of those half-raised eyes, those delicately
parted lips, so devoid of guile, that innocent bearing, and the divine
tenderness, mingled with strength, by which she commands admiration and
awakens love. I must fly. I must never see her again. Thomas's purpose
is steady. He must never see that mine rocks like an idol smitten by a
thunderbolt.

"If Thomas had not been reared in Paris, he too--But I am the only weak
one. Curses on my----

"Did I say I would fly? I cannot, not yet. One more glimpse of her face,
if only to satisfy myself that I have reason for this madness. Perhaps I
was but startled yesterday to find a celestial loveliness where I
expected to encounter pallid inanity. If my emotion is due to my own
weakness rather than to her superiority, I had better recognize my folly
before it proves my destruction.

I will stay and----

Thomas will not, shall not----

dexter's daughter----

hate, hate for Thom----

"My self-esteem is restored. I have seen her again--him--they were
together--there was true love in his eye--how could I expect him not to
love her--and I was able to hide my anguish and impose his duty on him.
She loves him--or he thinks so--and the work goes on. But I will not
stay to watch its accomplishment. No, no.

"I told him my story to-night, under the guise of a past experience. Oh,
the devils must laugh at us men! They have reason to. Sometimes I wonder
if my father in the clearness of his new vision does not join them in
their mirth.

"Home with my unhappy secret! Home, where nothing comes to distract me
from my gnawing griefs and almost intolerable thoughts. I walk the
floors. I cry aloud her name. I cry it even under the portrait of
Evelyn. There are moments when I am tempted to write to Thomas--to
forbid him----

"Eva! Eva! Eva! Every fibre in my miserable body utters the one word.
But no man shall ever know. Thomas shall never know how the thought of
her fills my days and nights, making my life a torment and the
future----

"I wait for his letters (scanty they are and cold) as the doomed
criminal awaits his executioner. Does she really love him? Or will that
exquisite, that soulfu