y has had
me here: how could I help knowing it? She has been so foolish in
her plans that ten times a day she has told her own secret. But I
have said to myself twenty times, that if she were crafty, you were
honest."

"And am I dishonest?"

"I have laughed in my sleeve to see how she played her game, and to
hear others around playing theirs; all of them thinking that they
could get the money of the poor fool who had come at their beck and
call; but I was able to laugh at them as long as I thought that I had
one true friend to laugh with me. But one cannot laugh with all the
world against one."

"I am not against you, Miss Dunstable."

"Sell yourself for money! why, if I were a man I would not sell one
jot of liberty for mountains of gold. What! tie myself in the heyday
of my youth to a person I could never love, for a price! perjure
myself, destroy myself--and not only myself, but her also, in order
that I might live idly! Oh, heavens! Mr Gresham! can it be that
the words of such a woman as your aunt have sunk so deeply in your
heart; have blackened you so foully as to make you think of such vile
folly as this? Have you forgotten your soul, your spirit, your man's
energy, the treasure of your heart? And you, so young! For shame, Mr
Gresham! for shame--for shame."

Frank found the task before him by no means an easy one. He had to
make Miss Dunstable understand that he had never had the slightest
idea of marrying her, and that he had made love to her merely with
the object of keeping his hand in for the work as it were; with that
object, and the other equally laudable one of interfering with his
cousin George.

And yet there was nothing for him but to get through this task as
best he might. He was goaded to it by the accusations which Miss
Dunstable brought against him; and he began to feel, that though her
invective against him might be bitter when he had told the truth,
they could not be so bitter as those she now kept hinting at under
her mistaken impression as to his views. He had never had any strong
propensity for money-hunting; but now that offence appeared in his
eyes abominable, unmanly, and disgusting. Any imputation would be
better than that.

"Miss Dunstable, I never for a moment thought of doing what
you accuse me of; on my honour, I never did. I have been very
foolish--very wrong--idiotic, I believe; but I have never intended
that."

"Then, Mr Gresham, what did you intend?"

This was rather