I have been. That is all no matter now. Mr. Darrell, I would not part
from you with angry and bitter sentiments. Colonel Morley tells me that
you have not only let the man, whom we need not name, go free, but that
you have guarded the secret of his designs. For this I thank you. I
thank you, because what is left of that blasted and deformed existence I
have taken into mine. And I would save that man from his own devices
as I would save my soul from its own temptations. Are you large-hearted
enough to comprehend me? Look in my face--you have seen his; all earthly
love is erased and blotted out of both."

Guy Darrell bowed his head in respect that partook of awe.

"You, too," said the grim woman, after a pause, and approaching him
nearer--"you, too, have loved, I am told, and you, too, were forsaken."

He recoiled and--shuddered.

"What is left to your heart of its ancient folly? I should like to know!
I am curious to learn if there be a man who can feel as woman! Have you
only resentment? have you only disdain? have you only vengeance? have
you pity? or have you the jealous absorbing desire, surviving the
affection from which it sprang, that still the life wrenched from you
shall owe, despite itself, a melancholy allegiance to your own?"

Darrell impatiently waved his hand to forbid further questions; and it
needed all his sense of the service this woman had just rendered him to
repress his haughty displeasure at so close an approach to his torturing
secrets.

Arabella's dark bright eyes rested on his knitted brow, for a moment,
wistfully, musingly. Then she said: "I see! man's inflexible pride--no
pardon there! But own, at least, that you have suffered."

"Suffered!" groaned Darrell involuntarily, and pressing his hand to his
heart.

"You have!--and you own it! Fellow-sufferer, I have no more anger
against you. Neither should pity, but let each respect the other. A few
words more,--this child!"

"Ay--ay--this child! you will be truthful. You will not seek to deceive
me--you know that she--she--claimed by that assassin, reared by his
convict father--she is no daughter of my line!"

"What! would it then be no joy to know that your line did not close with
yourself--that your child might--"

"Cease, madam, cease--it matters not to a man nor to a race when it
perish, so that it perish at last with honour. Who would have either
himself or his lineage live on into a day when the escutcheon is blotted
and the name