at he did hold me dear
As precious eyesight, and did value me
Above this world, adding thereto moreover
That he would wed me."

"Men's vows are women's traitors."

"To promise is most courtly and fashionable; performance
is a kind of will or testament which argues a great sickness in
his judgment that makes it."

--Shakspeare.

THE sight which met my eyes as I gazed around was one which time
can never efface from my memory. In the centre of the room, his brow
darkened by the flush of concentrated indignation, stood Oaklands, his
left hand clenching tightly the coat-collar of a man whom I at once
perceived to be Wilford, while with his right hand he was administering
such a horse-whipping as I hope never again to see a human being
subjected to. Wilford, who actually writhed with mingled pain and fury,
was making violent but ineffectual struggles to free himself. Near the
door stood Wentworth, the blood dropping from his nose, and his clothes
dusty and disordered, as if from a fall. Crouching in a corner at the
farther end of the room, the tears coursing down her fear-blanched
cheeks, and her hands clasped in an agony of terror and despair, was
a girl, about nineteen years of age, whom I had little difficulty in
recognising as Lizzie Maurice, the daughter of the old confectioner, of
whose elopement we had been that morning informed. On perceiving me
she sprang forward, and clasping my knees implored me to interfere and
endeavour to separate them. I was not, however, called upon to do so,
for, as she spoke, his riding-whip broke short in Oaklands' hand, and
dashing down the fragments with an exclamation of impatience, he flung
Wilford from him with so much force that he staggered forward a few
paces, and would have fallen had not Wentworth caught him in his arms,
just in time to prevent it.

[Illustration: page190 The Roused Lion]

~191~~Oaklands then turned to the girl, whom I had raised from the
ground and placed on a chair, and addressing her in a stern impressive
manner, said: "I will now resume what I was saying to you when yonder
beaten hound dared to lay hands upon me. For the last time the choice is
offered to you--either return home, and endeavour, by devoting yourself
to your broken-hearted old father, to atone as best you may for the
misery you have caused him; or, by remaining here, commence a life of
infamy which will end sooner or later in a miserable death." H