u have forgotten."

"What is it?"

"Can you not forgive me?" said he, almost sobbing as he spoke.

"I cannot,--I cannot," said she. "You ask me for more than any human
heart could yield. All that the world can heap upon me of contempt would
be as nothing to what I should feel for myself if I stooped to that.
No, no; follow out your vengeance if it must be, but spare me to my own
heart."

"Do you know the insults you cast upon me?" cried he, savagely. "Are you
aware that it is to my own ears you speak these words?"

"Do not quarrel with me because I deal honestly by you," said she,
firmly. "I will not promise that I cannot pay. Remember, too, Ludlow,
that what I ask of you I do not ask from your generosity. I make no
claim to what I have forfeited all right. I simply demand the price you
set upon a certain article of which to _me_ the possession is more than
life. I make no concealment from you. I own it frankly--openly."

"You want your letters, and never to hear more of _me_!" said he,
sternly.

"What sum will you take for them?" said she, in a slow, whispering
voice.

"You ask what will enable you to set me at defiance forever, Loo! Say it
frankly and fairly. You want to tear your bond and be free."

She did not speak, and he went on,--

"And you can ask this of the man you abhor! you can stoop to solicit him
whom, of all on earth, you hate the most!"

Still she was silent.

"Well," said he, after a lengthened pause, "you shall have them. I
will restore them to you. I have not got them here,--they are in
England,--but I will fetch them. My word on it that I will keep my
pledge. I see," added he, after an interval, in which he expected she
would speak, but was still silent,--"I see how little faith you repose
in a promise. You cannot spare one word of thanks for what you regard as
so uncertain; but I can endure this, for I have borne worse. Once more,
then, I swear to you, you shall have your letters back. I will place
them myself in your hands, and before witnesses too. Remember that,
Loo--before witnesses!" And with these words, uttered with a sort of
savage energy, he turned away from her, and was soon lost in the crowd.

"I have followed you this hour, Loo," said a low voice beside her.

She turned and took the speaker's arm, trembling all over, and scarcely
able to keep from falling.

"Take me away, father,--take me away from this," said she, faintly. "I
feel very ill."

"It was Paten was with