and cry."

"You are young to be so brutal. Will your conscience never torment you?"

"I have too much brain to submit to conscience, and you know it. I shall
suffer the torments of the damned, but not from conscience. But I would
rather suffer with you out of the world than in it. I have stood that as
long as a mere mortal can stand anything. Revenge is not my only motive.
Either you or I must go, and as I have now found the means of boundless
distraction, I live. I have been on the point of killing myself and you
more than once. But my power to injure you gave me an exquisite
satisfaction; and then, I always hoped. Now the time for the _period_
has come." Her chin sank to her neck, and she stared at him until her
eyes filled. "Do you love them so much more than you ever loved me?" she
asked wistfully.

Hamilton turned away his head. "Yes," he said.

She drew a long shivering breath. "Ah!" she said. "You are a frail
shadow of yourself. You have no passion in you. And yet, even as you
are, I would fling these jewels into the river, and live with you until
you died in my arms. You may think me a monster, if you like, but you
shall die knowing that your wife does not love you as I do."

Hamilton leaned forward and dried her tears. "Say that you forgive me,"
she said; for audacity was ever a part of genius.

"Yes," he said grimly, "I forgive you. You and Bonaparte are the two
magnificent products of the French Revolution. I am sorry you are not
more of a philosopher, but, so far as I alone am concerned, I regret
nothing."

"Oh, men!" she exclaimed, with scorn. "They are always philosophers when
they are no longer in love with a woman. But you will give me your last
conscious moment?"

"No," he said deliberately, "I shall not."

She sprang to her feet. "You will! Thank you for saying that, though! I
was about to grovel at your feet. Take me to my coach! What a fool I was
to come here!" She seized her pelisse, and wound it about her as she ran
down the hall. Hamilton followed, insisting that she give him time to
awaken a servant. But she would not heed. She flung herself into her
coach, and called to the driver to gallop his horses, unless he wished
to lose his place on the morrow. Hamilton stood on the porch, listening
to the wild flight down the rough hill through the forest But it was
unbroken, so long as he could hear anything, and he laughed suddenly and
entered the house.

"The high farce of tragedy," he th