has gone.

"Molly!" says he, taking a step toward her, and holding out his hands,
softened, vanquished by her tears, ready to throw himself once more an
abject slave at her feet.

"Do not speak to me," returns she, still sobbing bitterly. "Have you
not done enough? I wish you would leave me to myself. Go away. There is
nothing more that you _can_ do."

Feeling abashed, he scarcely knows why, he silently quits the room.

Then down upon her knees before the fire falls Molly, and with the
poker strives with all her might to discover some traces of her lost
treasure. So diligent is her search that after a little while the ring,
blackened, disfigured, altered almost beyond recognition, lies within
her hand. Still it is her ring, however changed, and some small ray of
comfort gladdens her heart.

She is still, however, weeping bitterly, and examining sadly the
precious relic she has rescued from utter oblivion, and from which the
diamond, soiled, but still brilliant, has fallen into her palm, when
Philip enters.

"Molly, what has happened?" he asks, advancing toward her, shocked at
her appearance, which evinces all the deepest signs of woe. "What has
distressed you?"

"You have," cries she, with sudden vehement passion, all her sorrow and
anger growing into quick life as she sees him. "You are the cause of
all my misery. Why do you come near me? You might, at least, have grace
enough to spare me the pain of seeing you."

"I do not understand," he says, his face very pale. "In how have I
offended,--I, who would rather be dead than cause you any unhappiness?
Tell me how I have been so unfortunate."

"I hate you," she says, with almost childish cruelty, sobbing afresh.
"I wish you had died before I came to this place. You have come between
me and the only man I love. Yes,"--smiting her hands together in a very
agony of sorrow,--"he may doubt it if he will, but I _do_ love
him; and now we are separated forever. Even my ring"--with a sad glance
at it--"is broken, and so is--my heart."

"You are alluding to--Luttrell?" asks he,--his earliest suspicions at
last confirmed,--speaking with difficulty, so dry his lips have grown.

"I am."

"And how have I interfered between you and--him?"

"Why did you speak to me of love again last night," retorts she, "when
you must know how detestable a subject it is to me? He saw you put your
arm around me; he saw--ah! why did I not tell you then the truth (from
which through a mis