n, she heard them pass into Della's
chamber, linger there a moment, and then, oh, horror! they were directed
straight toward her door. They came on, in their wavering unsteadiness,
and, with a sudden impulse, Minny sprang to the bed, thinking to catch
up his sleeping son, and meet him in the hall; but ere she could carry
out her design Bernard had reached the door, entered, and closed it
behind him. His blood-shot eyes, his flushed face, and trembling hand,
as he held the lamp before him, all bore evidence of the excitement
under which he labored.

"So, so, pretty one, how do you progress in playing mother, eh?"

"Very well," replied Minny, with forced calmness. "Did you come to look
after him?"

"Look after him? no, I didn't; I knew he was doing well enough; I came
to look after you."

"Is there anything you want, which I can get you," said Minny,
approaching the door, and laying her hand on the knob.

"No, my beauty," returned the other, placing his back against the door,
and turning the key in the lock, while he placed his lamp on the table
beside him, "there's nothing I want which you can _get_ me, but there's
something I want which you can _give_ me, and that's a kiss. Come here."

He seated himself, and motioned for her to come and sit upon his knee.

Minny grew deathly pale, and laid her hand upon her heart, to still its
tumultuous throbbing. There was no way of escape; the window was too
high from the ground, and the door was locked, and her persecutor had
the key.

Striving to conceal her agitation, she said, as quietly as she could:--

"I cannot give you that, Bernard; such manifestations on your part, you
should remember, belong to your wife and child."

"And isn't the mother of my boy my wife? and did you not just confess
you were his mother?"

"In the absence of his rightful mother, I have striven to fill her
place; and if you choose to look upon me in such a light, show me the
respect which is my due. Leave my room, sir!"

"By Jove, girl, you are saucy; come here, and sit upon my knee. You're a
little wrathful just now, but all the prettier for that. Come."

Minny rose up, with her face ashy pale, and stood in her calm womanly
dignity before him.

"Are you not ashamed to show a defenceless woman such an outrage, in
your own house? I have seen the time when Bernard Wilkins would have
scorned so cowardly an act as this."

"That was when he had drank less wine, and lost less gold; come, ther