ge. And now this young lady tells me that you
are destroying her happiness."

"Well!"

"You can't suppose that I can hear all this without uneasiness."

"Do you believe it?"

"I do not know what to believe. I am driven mad."

"If you believe it, George, if you believe a word of it, I will go away
from you. I will go back to papa. I will not stay with you to be
doubted."

"That is nonsense."

"It shall not be nonsense. I will not live to hear myself accused by my
husband as to another man. Wicked young woman! Oh, what women are and
what they can do! She has never been engaged to Captain De Baron."

"What is that to you or me?"

"Nothing, if you had not told me that I stood in her way."

"It is not her engagement, or her hopes, whether ill or well founded,
or his treachery to a lady, that concerns you and me, Mary; but that
she should send for me and tell me to my face that you are the cause of
her unhappiness. Why should she pitch upon you?"

"How can I say? Because she is very wicked."

"And why should Susanna feel herself obliged to caution me as to this
Captain De Baron? She had no motive. She is not wicked."

"I don't know that."

"And why should my brother tell me that all the world is speaking of
your conduct with this very man?"

"Because he is your bitterest enemy. George, do you believe it?"

"And why, when I come home with all this heavy on my heart, do I find
this very man closeted with you?"

"Closeted with me!"

"You were alone with him."

"Alone with him! Of course I am alone with anyone who calls. Would you
like me to tell the servant that Captain De Baron is to be
excluded,--so that all the world might know that you are jealous?"

"He must be excluded."

"Then you must do it. But it will be unnecessary. As you believe all
this, I will tell my father everything and will go back to him. I will
not live here, George, to be so suspected that the very servants have
to be told that I am not to be allowed to see one special man."

"No; you will go down into the country with me."

"I will not stay in the same house with you," she said, jumping up from
her seat, "unless you tell me that you suspect me of nothing--not even
of an impropriety. You may lock me up, but you cannot hinder me from
writing to my father."

"I trust you will do nothing of the kind."

"Not tell him! Who then is to be my friend if you turn against me? Am I
to be all alone among a set of people who think nothing