repose and reputation to Mabel Harrington, for so much
money--and she is to triumph a second time! I am nothing--a weed, a bit
of miserable night-shade that has poison in it, and nothing more."

As she muttered over these thoughts, more and more slowly, the woman
folded her arms, and stood immovable for several minutes; her brow grew
dark as midnight, and a strange, settled expression came up to her
face, as if the poison she had just spoken of were diffusing itself
through her entire system. At last she heard steps approaching the
library, and hurried away through the disused entrance.

CHAPTER LXVII.

THE EVENING RIDE.

As Ralph Harrington was returning from Benson's cabin one night, he met
Agnes Barker. It was yet early in the evening, but the sharp, frosty air
rendered it singular that a young girl should have ventured into the
cold, without some important object to urge her forth. Ralph had been
touched, and a good deal subdued, by his conversation with Ben; and he
would gladly have avoided this rencontre with the governess, who
invariably left him excited and wretched with fresh doubts whenever he
conversed with her. But Agnes came directly towards him, and he remarked
that her manner of walking was excited, and like that of a person who
had some important object to pursue.

"Mr. Ralph Harrington, you have been unjust to me. When I told you that
Lina French was still in the neighborhood quietly domesticated, where
your saintly step-brother could visit her at will, you disbelieved me,
and cast discredit on my word. Since then, James Harrington has
disappeared mysteriously as she did. I now say that he, also, is in the
city, making preparations to take the girl South; in a few days she will
leave it with him."

"Why should he take this course, Miss Barker, if it is true? My brother
was wealthy, free, and has been for years his own master. If he loved
Lina, there was no need of concealment--nothing but my own mad passion
stood in the way, and Heaven knows that I was ready to take the heart
from my bosom, could that have made him or her happier. There is a
mystery in all this that I cannot fathom. My brother, so noble, so more
than generous, could not have lived the life he has, to prove this
traitor to himself and us at last."

"Then you still have faith in this girl?"

"I will not believe so ill of her as you seem to desire, until some
farther explanation is had. She may love my brother, and he, I c