s will be highly satisfactory to me."

"I will bet my life," he said, passionately, "that Evelyn Erle is at the
root of all this! That girl," he soliloquized, "who knew so well, from
the first, what our intentions were; to throw herself at his head in the
shameless way she did! A woman, without a woman's modesty."

"Beware, Mr. Bainrothe," I interrupted; "it is of my sister you speak. I
will not hear her slandered. Certainly, if propriety ever assumed female
form, it is in that of Evelyn Erie. This was my father's opinion--it is
mine."

"Propriety! The pale ghost of it rather," he sneered; "I thought you
hated hypocrisy; you do not love that woman--have little right to; yet
you praise and defend her. How is this! Are you sincere in such a
course? Ask your own heart."

"Mr. Bainrothe, let us not discuss Evelyn, I beg, either now or
hereafter; for some reason she is very sacred to me. I cannot say one
word more on the subject of your son than I have said, without his own
consent. As to our marriage, let me tell you frankly--" I hesitated--the
stricture of my throat, for a moment, interrupted me, and I was ashamed
of my weakness.

"That it is indefinitely postponed, I suppose you would like to say,
Miriam," he added, ironically. "Well, I honor your emotion; don't be
ashamed of it. Claude is to blame, no doubt; but the poor fellow suffers
enough already, without prolonged punishment. Suppose I send him up to
you; he will fall at your feet."

I shook my head silently.

"Now, don't be hard-hearted; I have never seen any man more devoted
than he is to you. A woman must forgive a few shortcomings, now and
then, in one of our faulty sex. You lived so long with a man who was
almost perfect, that you cannot make allowances for impulsive and
indiscreet young manhood. What has poor Claude been guilty of?"

"I will tell you," I said, recovering myself by the time this speech was
ended, by a mighty effort. "I will tell you: Guilty only of doing
violence to his own inclinations, from a mistaken sense of duty to his
father; that is all. I never felt more kindly--more affectionately to
Claude Bainrothe than at this moment. If I can serve him in any way, but
one, he may always command me. Let him go for the present to Copenhagen,
I implore you; it will be best for him--for all of us. He will know his
own mind better then, than he can now. When he returns, I would like to
see him happy. I doubt if he will be so, if he remains here