nervously, before she makes reply. A
prompting toward mischief grows within her, together with a sense of
anger that he should dare put such a question to her under existing
circumstances.

"I cannot see by what right you put to me such a question--now," she
says, at length, haughtily. "My affairs can no longer concern you."
With an offended gleam at him from under her long lashes.

"But they do," cries he, hotly, maddened by her blush, which he has
attributed jealously to a wrong cause. "How can I see you throwing
yourself away upon a _roue_--a blackleg--without uttering a word
of warning?"

"'A _roue_--a blackleg'? Those are strong terms. What has Captain
Shadwell done to deserve them? A blackleg! How?"

"Perhaps I go too far when I say that," says Luttrell, wishing with all
his heart he knew something vile of Shadwell; "but he has gone as near
it as any man well can. You and he cannot have a thought in common.
Will you sacrifice your entire life without considering well the
consequences?"

"He is a gentleman, at all events," says Miss Massereene, slowly,
cuttingly. "He never backbites his friends. He is courteous in his
manner; and--he knows how to keep--his temper. I do not believe any of
your insinuations."

"You defend him?" cries Luttrell, vehemently. "Does that mean that you
already love him? It is impossible! In a few short weeks to forget all
the vows we interchanged, all the good days we spent at Brooklyn,
before we ever came to this accursed place! There at least you liked me
well enough,--you were willing to trust to me your life's happiness;
here!--And now you almost tell me you love this man, who is utterly
unworthy of you. Speak. Say it is not so."

"I shall tell you nothing. You have no right to ask me. What is there
to prevent my marrying whom I choose? Have you so soon forgotten that
last night you--_jilted_ me?" She speaks bitterly, and turns from
him with an unlovely laugh.

"Molly," cries the young man, in low tones, full of passion, catching
her hand, all the violent emotion he has been so painfully striving to
suppress since her entrance breaking loose now, "listen to me for one
moment. Do not kill me. My whole heart is bound up in you. You are too
young to be so cruel. Darling, I was mad when I deemed I could live
without you. I have been mad ever since that fatal hour last night.
Will you forgive me? _Will_ you?"

"Let my hand go, Mr. Luttrell," says the girl, with a dry sob. Is it