th hot upon my face.

"'There is no curse a man can invoke upon the woman who has ruined him,'
he said, 'that I do not give to you; but, remember, I do not glory in my
crime--I am ashamed of it.'

"In the darkness I groped my way to the door, and opened it; in the
darkness we passed through the hall where the armor used by warriors of
old hung, and in the darkness we went up the broad staircase. I stood at
the door of Sir Oswald's room while Captain Langton replaced the keys,
and then, without a word, I went to my own chamber.

"Vane, I can never tell you of the storm, the tempest of hate that raged
within me. I could have killed myself for having taken the oath. I could
have killed Captain Langton for having extorted it. But there was no
help for it then. Do you think I did wrong in taking it?"

"No, my darling," he replied, "I do not. Few girls would have been so
brave. You are a heroine, Pauline."

"Hush!" she said, interrupting him. "You have not heard all. I do not
blame myself for acting as I did. I debated for some time whether I
ought to keep the oath or not. Every good impulse of gratitude prompted
me to break it; yet again it seemed to me a cowardly thing to purchase
my life by a lie. Time passed on--the wonder all died away. I said to
myself that, if ever any one were falsely accused, I would speak out;
but such an event never happened; and not very long after, as you know,
Sir Oswald died. I did not like living under the shadow of that
secret--it robbed my life of all brightness. Captain Langton came again.
No words of mine can tell the contempt in which I held him, the contempt
with which I treated him; every one noticed it, but he did not dare to
complain. He did dare, however, to offer me his hateful love again, and,
when I repulsed him in such a fashion as even he could not overlook, he
turned all his attention to Lady Darrell. I am a wicked girl, Vane--now
that the light of your love has revealed so much to me, I can see how
wicked. I have told you that I had sworn to myself to be revenged on
Lady Darrell for coming between me and my inheritance. I have seen more
of the world since then, but at that time it seemed to me an
unparalleled thing that a young girl like her should marry an old man
like Sir Oswald entirely for his money. I told her if she did so I
would be revenged. I know it was wrong," Pauline continued, humbly; "at
the time I thought it brave and heroic, now I know it was wrong, and
we