me was when at your bidding I
would have laid my throbbing heart at your feet, provided I could
thereby save you one pang; for I loved you as women very rarely love
one another. But now, lonely and hopeless, I have lost the power, the
capacity to love anything, and I have no heart left in my bosom. I
acquit you of much for which I formerly held you responsible, and I
honor the purity of purpose that forbade your receiving the visits or
letters of him who must one day answer for our worthless lives. I
fully forgive you the suffering that made me prematurely old; but my
affection is as dead as all my girlish hopes, and buried under the
crushing years that have dragged themselves over my poor, proud,
pain-bleached head. You are more fortunate, more enviable than I, for
you have the comforting anticipation of a speedy release, the precious
assurance that your torture will ere long be ended; while I must front
the prospect of perhaps fourscore and ten years: for, despite my ivory
skin and fever-blanched locks, I am maddeningly healthy. Friend of my
childhood, friend of my happy, sunny, sinless days, I cordially
congratulate you on your approaching deliverance. God knows I would
pay you my fortune, if I could innocently and successfully inject into
my veins and lungs the poison that will soon rob you of care and
regret. If I was harsh to-day, forgive and forget it, for nothing
rankles in the grave; and now, Edith, go away quickly, before I repent
and recant the words I here utter. God comfort you, Edith Dexter, and
remember that I hold you guiltless of my wrecked destiny."

"Oh, Evelyn! add one thing more. Say, 'Edith, I love you.'"

A strangely mournful smile parted Mrs. Gerome's perfect lips over her
dazzling teeth, as she pushed the kneeling figure from her, and said
coldly,--

"Rise, and leave me. I love no living thing, brute or human, for even
my faithful dog lies buried a few yards hence. Maurice treated my
warm, loving nature, as Tofana did her unsuspecting victims, and for
that slow poison there is no antidote. The sole interest I have in
life centres in my art, and when death mercifully remembers me, some
pictures I have patiently wrought out will be given to the public; and
the next generation will, perhaps,--

'Hear the world applaud the hollow ghost,
Which blamed the living woman,'

and, smiling grimly in my coffin, I shall echo,--

'Hither to come, and to sleep,
Under the wings of renown.'"

Bo