d in my early girlhood the one love
dream of all my life was rudely broken, leaving me no more capacity
to indulge a second, than belongs to those marbles in the _Musee
Bourbonique_. For my dear young husband I felt the only intense,
idolatrous, yes, blindly worshipping devotion, that my nature could
yield to any human being. When I lost him, I lost my heart also;
became doubly widowed, because my grief bereft me of the power of
properly loving even our little baby. For years I have given my body
and soul to the accomplishment of one purpose, the elevation of my
social status, and that of my child. Had my husband been spared to
me, we would not have remained obscure and poor, but after my
widowhood the struggle devolved upon me. I have not had leisure to
think of love, have toiled solely for maintenance and position; and
have sternly held myself aloof from the world that dared to believe
my profession rendered me easy of access. Titles have been laid at my
feet, but their glitter seemed fictitious, did not allure me; and no
other name save yours has ever for an instant tempted me. To-day you
are here to plead my acceptance of that name, and frankly, I tell
you, sir, it dazzles me. As an American I know all that it
represents, all that it would confer on me, all that it would prove
for my child, and I would rather wear the name of Laurance than a
coronet! I confess I have but one ambition, to lift my daughter into
that high social plane, from which fate excluded her mother; and this
eminence I covet for her, marriage with you promises me. I have no
heart to bring you; mine died with all my wifely hopes when I lost my
husband. If I consent to give you my hand, and nominally the claim of
a husband, in exchange for the privilege of merging Orme in Laurance,
it must be upon certain solemn conditions, to the fulfilment of which
your traditional honour is pledged. Is a Laurance safely bound by
vows?"

Her voice had grown strangely metallic, losing all its liquid
sweetness, and as her gaze searched his face, the striking
resemblance she traced in his eyes and mouth to those of Cuthbert and
Regina seemed to stab her heart.

To the man who listened and watched with breathless anxiety her
hardening, whitening features, she merely recalled the memory of her
own tragic "Medea" confronting "Jason" at Athens.

"Only accept my vows at the altar, and I challenge the world to
breathe an imputation upon their sanctity. Rene Laurance n