trike.

"Well, Kitty," he said at last, thickly, and with glazing eye. "Well, my
Princess of the Mediterranean. We shall be happy, hey? You're not afraid
even now, hey?"

"Oh, we shall be very happy," she replied, in a low, wild tone, as if it
were the night wind that moaned, and not a woman's voice.

He looked at her for a few moments. He saw how entirely she was
enthralled by him.

"I wonder if I care any thing about you?" he said at length, leering at
her through the cigar-smoke.

"I don't think you do," she answered, meekly.

"But my--my--dear Mrs. Jones--the su-superb Mrs. Delilah Jo-Jones ought
to be sure that I do. Here, bring me a light: that dam--dam--cigar's gone
out."

She rose quietly and carried the candle to Abel. There was an
inexpressible weariness and pathos in all her movements: a kind of
womanly tranquillity that was touchingly at variance with the impression
of her half-coarse appearance. As Abel watched her he remembered the
women whom he had tried to marry. His memory scoured through his whole
career. He thought of them all variously happy.

"I swear! to think I should come to you!" he said at length, looking at
his companion, with an indescribable bitterness of sneering.

Kitty Dunham sat at a little distance from him on the end of a sofa. She
was bowed as if deeply thinking; and when she heard these words her head
only sank a little more, as if a palpable weight had been laid upon her.
She understood perfectly what he meant.

"I know I am not worth loving," she said, in the same low voice, "but my
love will do you no harm. Perhaps I can help you in some way. If you are
ill some day, I can nurse you. I shall be poor company on the long
journey, but I will try."

"What long journey?" asked Abel, suddenly and angrily.

"Where we are going," she replied, gently.

"D---- it, then, don't use such am-am-big-'us phrases. A man would think
we were go-going to die."

She said no more, but sat, half-crouching, upon the sofa, looking into
the fire. Abel glanced at her, from time to time, with maudlin grins and
sneers.

"Go to bed," he said at length; "I've something to do. Sleep all you can;
you'll need it. I shall stay here 'till I'm ready to go, and come for you
in the morning."

"Thank you," she answered, and rose quietly. "Good-night!" she said.

"Oh! good-night, Mrs. De-de-liah--superb Jo-Jones!"

He laughed as she went--sat ogling the fire for a little while, and then
unsteadily