and a
low voice murmuring:

"Marah Rocke, yes! the same beautiful Marah that, as a girl of
fifteen--twenty years ago--turned my head, led me by her fatal charms
into the very jaws of death--the same lovely Marah with her beauty only
ripened by time and exalted by sorrow!"

With one surprised, indignant look, but without a word of reply, Mrs.
Rocke turned and walked composedly toward the door with the intention of
quitting the room.

Colonel Le Noir saw and forestalled her purpose by springing forward,
turning the key and standing before the door.

"Forgive, me, Marah, but I must have a word with you before we part," he
said, in those soft, sweet, persuasive tones he knew so well how to
assume.

Marah remembered that she was an honorable matron and an honored mother;
that, as such, fears and tremors and self-distrust in the presence of a
villain would not well become her; so calling up all the gentle dignity
latent in her nature, she resumed her seat and, signing to the visitor
to follow her example, she said composedly:

"Speak on, Colonel Le Noir--remembering, if you please, to whom you
speak."

"I do remember, Marah; remember but too well."

"They call me Mrs. Rocke who converse with me, sir."

"Marah, why this resentment? Is it possible that you can still be angry?
Have I remained true to my attachment all these years and sought you
throughout the world to find this reception at last?"

"Colonel Le Noir, if this is all you had to say, it was scarcely worth
while to have detained me," said Mrs. Rocke calmly.

"But it is not all, my Marah! Yes, I call you mine by virtue of the
strongest attachment man ever felt for woman! Marah Rocke, you are the
only woman who ever inspired me with a feeling worthy to be called a
passion----"

"Colonel Le Noir, how dare you blaspheme this house of mourning by such
sinful words? You forget where you stand and to whom you speak."

"I forget nothing, Marah Rocke; nor do I violate this sanctuary of
sorrow"--here he sank his voice below his usual low tones--"when I speak
of the passion that maddened my youth and withered my manhood--a passion
whose intensity was its excuse for all extravagances and whose enduring
constancy is its final, full justification!"

Before he had finished this sentence Marah Rocke had calmly arisen and
pulled the bell rope.

"What mean you by that, Marah?" he inquired.

Before she replied a servant, in answer to the bell, came to the door
an