fixed than at this
speech. She started--an inquiring and tearful doubt rose into her eyes,
as they settled piercingly upon his own; but the information they met
with there needed no further word of assurance from his lips. He was a
stern tyrant--one, however, who did not trifle.

"I feared as much, Guy--I have had thoughts which as good as told me
this long before. The silent form before me has said to me, over and
over again, you would never wed her whom you have dishonored. Oh, fool
that I was!--spite of her forebodings and my own, I thought--I still
think, and oh, Guy, let me not think in vain--that there would be a time
when you would take away the reproach from my name and the sin from my
soul, by making me your wife, as you have so often promised."

"You have indeed thought like a child, Ellen, if you suppose that,
situated as I am, I could ever marry simply because I loved."

"And will you not love her whom you are now about to wed?"

"Not as much as I have loved you--not half so much as I love you now--if
it be that I have such a feeling at this moment in my bosom."

"And wherefore then would you wed, Guy, with one whom you do not, whom
you can not love? In what have I offended--have I ever reproached or
looked unkindly on you, Guy, even when you came to me, stern and full of
reproaches, chafed with all things and with everybody?"

"There are motives, Ellen, governing my actions into which you must not
inquire--"

"What, not inquire, when on these actions depend all my hope--all my
life! Now indeed you are the tyrant which my old mother said, and all
people say, you are."

The girl for a moment forgot her submissiveness, and her words were
tremulous, less with sorrow than the somewhat strange spirit which her
wrongs had impressed upon her. But sue soon felt the sinking of the
momentary inspiration, and quickly sought to remove the angry scowl
which she perceived coming over the brow of her companion.

"Nay, nay--forgive me, Guy--let me not reproach--let me not accuse you.
I have not done so before: I would not do so now. Do with me as you
please; and yet, if you are bent to wed with another, and forget and
overlook your wrongs to me, there is one kindness which would become
your hands, and which I would joy to receive from them. Will you do for
me this kindness, Guy? Nay, now be not harsh, but say that you will do
it."

She seized his hand appealingly as she spoke, and her moist but
untearful eyes we