evan must be either
drunk or mad.

"Leave me, sir!" she said peremptorily, but with a voice trembling with
indignation.

But he advanced towards her with open arms, and went on,--

"Yes, I love you madly, and for a long time,--ever since the first day I
saw you."

Henrietta, however, had swiftly moved aside, and opened the window.

"If you advance another step, I shall cry for help."

He stopped, and, changing his tone, said to her,--

"Ah! You refuse? Well, what are you hoping for? For Daniel's return?
Don't you know that he loves Sarah?"

"Ah! you abuse my forlorn condition infamously!" broke in the young
girl. And, as he still insisted, she added,--

"Why don't you go, coward? Why don't you go, wretched man? Must I call?"

He was frightened, backed to the door, and half opened it; then he
said,--

"You refuse me to-day; but, before the month is over, you will beg me to
come to you. You are ruined; and I alone can rescue you."

XVIII.

At last, then, the truth had come out!

Overcome with horror, her hair standing at an end, and shaken by nervous
spasms, poor Henrietta was trying to measure the depth of the abyss into
which she had thrown herself.

Voluntarily, and with the simplicity of a child, she had walked into the
pit which had been dug for her. But who, in her place, would not have
trusted? Who could have conceived such an idea? Who could have suspected
such monstrous rascality?

Ah! Now she understood but too well all the mysterious movements that
had so puzzled her in M. de Brevan. She saw how profound had been his
calculations when he recommended her so urgently not to take her jewels
with her while escaping from her father's house, nor any object
of value; for, if she had had her jewelry, she would have been in
possession of a small fortune; she would have been independent, and
above want, at least for a couple of years.

But M. de Brevan wanted her to have nothing. He knew, the coward! with
what crushing contempt she would reject his first proposals; but he
flattered himself with the hope that isolation, fear, destitution would
at last reduce her to submission, and enable him--

"It is too horrible," repeated the poor girl,--"too horrible!"

And this man had been Daniel's friend! And it was he to whom Daniel,
at the moment of sailing, had intrusted his betrothed! What atrocious
deception! M. Thomas Elgin was no doubt a formidable bandit, faithless
and unscrupulous; but he was