should be hers.

"Will you replace him?" said she.

"Yes, truly, in everything but the name, dear Catherine; and when he
dies, I swear you shall be Countess of Galgenstein."

"Will you swear?" she cried, eagerly.

"By everything that is most sacred: were you free now, I would" (and
here he swore a terrific oath) "at once make you mine."

We have seen before that it cost Monsieur de Galgenstein nothing to
make these vows. Hayes was likely, too, to live as long as Catherine--as
long, at least, as the Count's connection with her; but he was caught in
his own snare.

She took his hand and kissed it repeatedly, and bathed it in her tears,
and pressed it to her bosom. "Max," she said, "I AM FREE! Be mine, and I
will love you as I have done for years and years."

Max started back. "What, is he dead?" he said.

"No, no, not dead: but he never was my husband."

He let go her hand, and, interrupting her, said sharply, "Indeed, madam,
if this carpenter never was your husband, I see no cause why _I_
should be. If a lady, who hath been for twenty years the mistress of a
miserable country boor, cannot find it in her heart to put up with the
protection of a nobleman--a sovereign's representative--she may seek a
husband elsewhere!"

"I was no man's mistress except yours," sobbed Catherine, wringing her
hands and sobbing wildly; "but, O Heaven! I deserved this. Because I was
a child, and you saw, and ruined, and left me--because, in my sorrow and
repentance, I wished to repair my crime, and was touched by that man's
love, and married him--because he too deceives and leaves me--because,
after loving you--madly loving you for twenty years--I will not now
forfeit your respect, and degrade myself by yielding to your will, you
too must scorn me! It is too much--too much--O Heaven!" And the wretched
woman fell back almost fainting.

Max was almost frightened by this burst of sorrow on her part, and was
coming forward to support her; but she motioned him away, and, taking
from her bosom a letter, said, "If it were light, you could see, Max,
how cruelly I have been betrayed by that man who called himself my
husband. Long before he married me, he was married to another. This
woman is still living, he says; and he says he leaves me for ever."

At this moment the moon, which had been hidden behind Westminster Abbey,
rose above the vast black mass of that edifice, and poured a flood of
silver light upon the little church of St. Marga