refuge; but let me first say that now it is as good a place of
concealment to you as before it was, for I shall not betray you."

"Go on, go on. What is it you desire?"

"During the long and weary hours of my captivity, I thought deeply, and
painfully too, as may be well imagined, of all the circumstances
connected with your appearance at Bannerworth Hall, and your subsequent
conduct. Then I felt convinced that there was something far more than
met the eye, in the whole affair, and, from what I have been informed of
since, I am the more convinced that some secret, some mystery, which it
is in your power only perhaps to explain, lurks at the bottom of all
your conduct."

"Well, proceed," said Varney.

"Have I not said enough now to enable you to divine the object of my
visit? It is that you should shake off the trammels of mystery in which
you have shrouded yourself, and declare what it is you want, what it is
you desire, that has induced you to set yourself up as such a determined
foe of the Bannerworth family."

"And that, you say, is the modest request that brings you here?"

"You speak as it you thought it was idle curiosity that prompts me, but
you know it is not. Your language and manner are those of a man of too
much sagacity not to see that I have higher notions."

"Name them."

"You have yourself, in more than one instance, behaved with a strange
sort of romantic generosity, as if, but for some great object which you
felt impelled to seek by any means, and at any sacrifice, you would be a
something in character and conduct very different from what you are. One
of my objects, then, is to awaken that better nature which is slumbering
within you, only now and then rousing itself to do some deed which
should be the character of all your actions--for your own sake I have
come."

"But not wholly?"

"Not wholly, as you say. There is another than whom, the whole world is
not so dear to me. That other one was serene as she was beautiful.
Happiness danced in her eyes, and she ought--for not more lovely is the
mind that she possesses than the glorious form that enshrines it--to be
happy. Her life should have passed like one long summer's day of beauty,
sunshine, and pure heavenly enjoyment. You have poisoned the cup of joy
that the great God of nature had permitted her to place to her lips and
taste of mistrustingly. Why have you done this? I ask you--why have you
done this?"

"Have you said all that you came