e library, and dropping one arm
softly over General Harrington's shoulder, stooped down and kissed his
forehead. The old man started, looked up, and a faint laugh, almost
childish in the sudden reaction from which it sprung, broke from his
lips.

"Zillah, my beautiful, my true-hearted, is it you?"

The woman dropped on one knee, trembling from head to foot. Some
endearing epithet, uttered in French, which converted the laugh on his
lips into a smile, broke as it were, unconsciously from her; and he felt
the arm upon his shoulder shiver like the wing of a bird just as it
settles after flight.

He answered her in French, and his eyes, full of gratitude for the balm
her emotion brought to his vanity, sought hers.

"Zillah, you loved me. I am at least sure of that!"

"Loved!" said the woman, lifting her black eyes, to his face. "Loved my
master. You speak as if such feelings were not eternal; to say that your
poor slave loved once, is nothing; turn over every leaf of her heart,
and you will find the same record upon them all. Thank Heaven, I am not
entirely white! There is enough of tropical fire in my blood, to save me
from burying my soul under the ashes of a dead love."

"How beautiful you are still," muttered the old man, passing his palm
over the black waves of her hair, with a light caress. "Your presence
kindles the very atmosphere. This is to be worshipped worthily. You
loved me, and I sold you for her sake. I bartered you off for so much
money to another; it was a cruel act, Zillah; but your love surmounted
even that, while hers"----

"She never loved you; never--never!" cried the woman, passionately. "I,
I alone of all the women on earth, really loved you. As for her"----

"Hush, Zillah, hush! I know all. I have read that book. I know all her
treachery; and he, ever a serpent in my path, ever a restraint upon my
actions, he has in this point also assailed me."

"But there is revenge!" said the woman, with a fierce gleam of the eyes;
"revenge on him and her!"

"No!" answered the General, gloomily. "To anger him, would be to make
myself a beggar. I must bear this in silence."

"Not if he loves her yet."

"But, does he? What man ever remained faithful to a first love twenty
years?"

A faint moan broke from the woman's lips, and dropping her face between
her hands, she cowered at his feet, as if he had stricken her down with
a blow, instead of those cruel words that no physical pain can equal,
when th