a false
admiration to Miss Murray," she continues, with a grave, sad demeanor,
"and you have been thinking of me in a manner that will make me despise
myself forever. How do you suppose I shall meet Mr. Grandon's eyes?"

"As if he cared! Oh, you know he doesn't, Violet. That is the wretched
part of it all."

She turns so pale and sways to and fro in her willow chair, like a
lily, when something has struck the stem but not broken it off, her
lips and pretty dimpled chin quivering, as if in an ague, her eyes
strained, imploring. To be told of that. To have no power to deny it.

"I am his wife," she says, and she tries to rise but falls back.

"Oh, my poor girl, my miserable little darling, don't I know that! But,
see here, Violet, I'm not a villain if I am an unfortunate wretch. I
never thought of any wrong or harm; you are too dear to me, you are
like some sweet little baby that a man wants to take in his arms and
kiss and comfort and hold forever. That is how you ought to be loved.
But I know a good deal better than you that going off and setting one's
self up against the law and society and respect, kills a woman. There
isn't any love worth such a sacrifice; only--I wish I had come to know
you well before you belonged to any one. And you ought to give me some
credit that I never made a fool of myself or did a single act that
Floyd mightn't see. You've been to me like a little angel. See here,
you are worth ten of Madame Lepelletier, with all her beauty. Why
didn't Floyd marry _her_? She has about as much real soul as he."

"Oh, don't!" she cries, in the depths of her anguish. "You wrong him.
You can never know how gentle and kind he was when papa died, and how
good he has always been to me. I am not so beautiful and fascinating,
or learned like Mrs. Latimer, but Cecil loves me."

She is crying now, not in any great sobs, but her eyes are wind-blown
lakes of crystal tears whose tide overflows. She has fallen back on the
one great comfort, the one pearl saved from the wrecked argosy.

"A man who could be cruel to you ought to be hanged!" he says,
passionately, and her tears move him beyond description. "Floyd isn't
cruel; he is simply cold, indifferent. Oh, my poor little girl, how can
I comfort you?"

"You cannot comfort me," she says, drearily. "I read a long while ago,
in the convent,--I think it was,--that it is not given to every one to
be happy, that one can be upright and honest and pure, and do one's
du