vering, herculean
of frame as he was, had not Mr. Gryce interposed.

"Wait!" he cried; and holding back the secretary with one hand--where
was his rheumatism now!--he put the other in his pocket and drew thence
a document which he held up before Mr. Clavering. "It has not gone
yet," said he; "be easy. And you," he went on, turning towards Trueman
Harwell, "be quiet, or----"

His sentence was cut short by the man springing from his grasp. "Let me
go!" he shrieked. "Let me have my revenge on him who, in face of all I
have done for Mary Leavenworth, dares to call her his wife! Let me--"
But at this point he paused, his quivering frame stiffening into stone,
and his clutching hands, outstretched for his rival's throat, falling
heavily back. "Hark!" said he, glaring over Mr. Clavering's shoulder:
"it is she! I hear her! I feel her! She is on the stairs! she is at the
door! she--" a low, shuddering sigh of longing and despair finished the
sentence: the door opened, and Mary Leavenworth stood before us!

It was a moment to make young hairs turn gray. To see her face, so pale,
so haggard, so wild in its fixed horror, turned towards Henry Clavering,
to the utter ignoring of the real actor in this most horrible scene!
Trueman Harwell could not stand it.

"Ah, ah!" he cried; "look at her! cold, cold; not one glance for me,
though I have just drawn the halter from her neck and fastened it about
my own!"

And, breaking from the clasp of the man who in his jealous rage would
now have withheld him, he fell on his knees before Mary, clutching her
dress with frenzied hands. "You _shall_ look at me," he cried; "you
_shall_ listen to me! I will not lose body and soul for nothing. Mary,
they said you were in peril! I could not endure that thought, so I
uttered the truth,--yes, though I knew what the consequence would
be,--and all I want now is for you to say you believe me, when I swear
that I only meant to secure to you the fortune you so much desired; that
I never dreamed it would come to this; that it was because I loved you,
and hoped to win your love in return that I----"

But she did not seem to see him, did not seem to hear him. Her eyes were
fixed upon Henry Clavering with an awful inquiry in their depths, and
none but he could move her.

"You do not hear me!" shrieked the poor wretch. "Ice that you are, you
would not turn your head if I should call to you from the depths of
hell!"

But even this cry fell unheeded. Pushin