ost darling! oh,
I thank God I have found you before I die!"

She covered the cold fingers with kisses, and pressed her face to a
band of the floating hair; but with a gesture of loathing Mrs. Gerome
broke away, and retreated a few steps.

"How dare you come into my presence? Goaded by a desire to witness the
ruin you helped to accomplish? Your audacity at least astounds me; but
fate decrees you the enjoyment of its reward. Lo! here I am! Behold
the gray shadow of what was once a happy, confiding girl! Behold in
the desolate, lonely woman, who hides her disgrace under the name of
Agla Gerome, that bride of an hour, that Evelyn whose heart you
stabbed! Does the wreck entirely satisfy you? What more could even
fiendish malevolence desire?"

"Evelyn, you wrong me. For mercy's sake do not upbraid and taunt me so
unjustly!"

In vain she held out her hands imploringly, while tears rolled over
her crimsoned cheeks, and sobs impeded her utterance. Mrs. Gerome
laughed bitterly.

"What! I wrong you? Have _you_ gone mad, instead of your victim? Miss
Dexter, you and I can scarcely afford to deal in mock tragedy, and
though you make a pretty picture kneeling there, I have no mind to
paint you yonder, where I put your colleague, Judas. Is it not a good
likeness of your lover, as he looked that memorable day when the broad
banana-leaves overshadowed his handsome head?"

She rapped the canvas with her clenched hand, and continued, in
accents of indescribable scorn,--

"Do you kneel as penitent or petitioner? You come to crave my pardon,
or my husband?"

The governess had bowed her face almost to the carpet, like some
fragile flower borne down by a sudden flood; but now she rose, and,
throwing her head back proudly, answered with firm yet gentle
dignity,--

"Of Mrs. Gerome I crave nothing. Of Evelyn Carlyle I demand justice;
simply bare justice."

"Justice! You are rash, Miss Dexter, to challenge fate; for, were
justice meted out, the burden would prove more intolerable to you than
that King Stork whom Zeus sent down as a Nemesis to quiet clamorous
frogs. Justice, let me tell you, long ago fled from this hostile and
inhospitable earth and took refuge beyond the stars, where, please
God, you and I shall one day confront her and get our long-defrauded
dues. Justice? Nay, nay! the thing I recognize as justice would crush
you utterly, and you should flee to the _Ultima Thule_ to avoid it. I
divine your mission. You come as en