sound of Carker's fastening the door resounded ahh the intermediate rooms, and seemed to come hushed I stated into that last distant one, the sound of the Hindral clock stoking twelve mangled with it, in Edith's Curs. She heard bara pres

lier t

heard it too and listened; aving a long train of footetting all the doors behind d, for a moment, left the in her reach upon the table: I before.

by yourself, my love!" he said

harsh; the quick turn of her head so

fierce, her ab ade so repellent; and her frown so black; that Lestou, with the lamp in his hand, looking at her, as if she hul struck him motionless.

1

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“Isn." - at length repeted, putting down the lamp, mxt couvenile, "how strange to come nary caution surely, and might A to have engaged an attendani od abundance of time for the

...

ad been the most capricious ard fre most beautiful, my love) of women." ast angely on him, but she stood with her hand resting on the Jur, and sud not a word.

"I have never,” resumed (arker, “ seen you look so handsome, as you do to-night. Even the picture I have carried in my mind during this cruel probation, and which I ha contemplated night and day, is eroded by the reality." Not a word. Not a look. Here completely hidder their drooping lashes, but her newd 1 ld up.

"Hard, unrelenting terms th were!" said Cark amile, "but they are all

the present more delicious

the place of our retreat

d and pass

LEFT ALONE TOGETHER.

391

the world, my soul, we'll both seek compensation for old slavery."

He was coming gaily towards her, when, in an instant, she caught the knife up from the table, and started one pace back.

"Stand still!" she said, "or I shall murder you!"

The sudden change in her, the towering fury and intense abhorrence sparkling in her eyes and lighting up her brow, made him stop as if a fire had stopped him.

"Stand still!" she said, "come no nearer me, upon your life!"

They both stood looking at each other. Rage and astonishment were in his face, but he controlled them, and said lightly,

66

Come, come! Tush, we are alone, and out of everybody's sight and hearing. Do you think to frighten me with these

tricks of virtue ?"

"Do you think to frighten me," she answered fiercely, "from any purpose that I have, and any course I am resolved upon, by reminding me of the solitude of this place, and there being no help near? Me, who am here alone, designedly? If I feared you, should I not have avoided you? If I feared you, should I be here, in the dead of night, telling you to your face what I am going to tell?"

“And what is that," he said, "you handsome shrew? Handsomer so, than any other woman in her best humour?"

"I tell you nothing," she returned, "until you go back to that chair-except this, once again-Don't come near me! Not a step nearer. I tell you, if you do, as Heaven sees us, I shall murder you!"

"Do you mistake me for your husband?" he retorted, with a grin.

Disdaining to reply, she stretched her arm out, pointing to the chair. He bit his lip, frowned, laughed, and sat down in it, with a baffled, irresolute, impatient air, he was unable to conceal; and biting his nail nervously, and looking at her