how many different ways; for though at first his eyes flashed angrily,
he soon gave a short jeering sort of laugh, and, throwing himself down
into a chair, he crossed his arms on his breast and gazed steadily at
her.

The look seemed to remind her of bygone suffering, for she turned her
head away, and then covered her face with her hands.

"Signora Maria," said he, slowly,--"unless, indeed, you still desire I
should call you Mrs. M'Caskey."

"No, no,--Maria," cried she, wildly; "I am but a servant--I toil for
my bread; but better that than--" She stopped, and, after an effort to
subdue her emotion, burst into tears and sobbed bitterly.

"It matters little to me, madam, what the name. The chain that ties
us is just as irrevocable, whatever we choose to call ourselves. As
to anything else, I do not suppose you intend to claim _me_ as your
husband."

"No, no, never," cried she, impetuously.

"Nor am I less generous, madam. None shall ever hear from me that you
were my wife. The contract was one that brought little credit to either
of us."

"Nothing but misery and misfortune to me!" said she, bitterly; "nothing
else,--nothing else!"

"You remind me, madam," said he, in a slow, deliberate voice, as though
he were enunciating some long-resolved sentiment,--"you remind me much
of Josephine."

"Who is Josephine?" asked she, quickly.

"I speak of the Empress Josephine, so you may perceive that I have
sought your parallel in high places. She, like you, deemed herself the
most unhappy of women, and all because destiny had linked her with a
greatness that she could not measure."

Though her vacant stare might have assured him either that she did not
understand his words, or follow their meaning, never daunted, he went
on.

"Yes, madam; and, like _her_ husband, yours has had much to
bear,--levity, frivolity, and--worse."

"What are you here for? Why have you come after me?" cried she, wildly.
"I swore to you before, and I swear it again, that I will never go back
to you."

"Whenever you reduce that pledge to writing, madam, call on me to be
your security for its due performance; be it known to you, therefore,
that this meeting was an unexpected happiness to me."

She covered her face, and rocked to and fro like one in the throes of a
deep suffering.

"I should be a glutton, madam, if I desired a repetition of such scenes
as these; they filled eight years--eight mortal years--of a life not
otherwise immemorabl