, Wilkins threw her from him, and strode
hurriedly, up and down through the narrow alley, where they stood. Minny
waited until his excitement had in a measure subsided, and he stood once
more with folded arms before her, and his dark eyes looking into hers.

"Now," said he, speaking half in mockery, half in awe of the
firm-hearted girl beside him, "now, my sin, my concentrated lightning,
my beautiful passion, my quintessence of gall and bitterness, go on.
I'll stand and listen now till doomsday, if you will it, though your
lips drop burning coals into my bare bosom, and scorch my soul. Go on,
I say, I'll listen."

Minnie drew herself up proudly before him, as she heard his words, and
stood with her beautiful head erect, and her keen eye fixed upon him,
unwaveringly.

"Had you possessed a soul to burn over a woman's woes, and a woman's
wrongs, it would have been scorched out long ago, Bernard; but let that
pass. I came to you this night, not only to tell over my own
wretchedness, a reviewal of which had risen up so forcibly before me,
but I came to you anew as the spirit of the past, to call up in your
breast the memory of what you have been, and to ask you if the future
brings a change. And now, Bernard, on all your hopes of happiness, here
or hereafter, answer me truly. Do you sincerely love this girl, whose
guileless heart you've won?"

"And whether I do or not, girl, is it you I must make my confessor? No,
never. It is a matter which concerns you not at all. Whether my heart be
black as hate, or pure as an angel's pinion, I lay it bare to no one.
Whatever my feelings or intent in this matter, they are my own."

"Not so, Bernard. If ambition has prompted you to gain her affections,
if love of wealth has sent you a wooer at that shrine, having in your
breast no faithful heart to bestow in return for hers, let me beg, let
me implore you, to stop where you are. Be merciful, compare the home
which you can give, to the home from whence you take her. Compare the
happiness which you can bestow to that of which you rob her, and feel,
that if you take her, with all this, to a loveless breast, you take her
to misery, to desolation, and death!"

"Do you deem me a villain, woman?"

"What you have been, you may be again."

Wilkins mused a moment; then, in a softer and more subdued tone, said:--

"No, no; oh no! God only knows--but never that to her, oh never!"

"Bernard! my mistress is dear to me; her happiness more sac