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292 the door, but not enough for any of the delights of life. And you told yourself that you would do penance for those happy days up at the hills, that you—you, Bothwell Grahame—would would settle down into a grinder of mathematics. A curious fancy—like that of some knight of old who, after a youth of passion and storm, turns hermit, and vegetates in a cave. No, Bothwell, I do not for a moment believe that you ever seriously cared for this country-bred girl."

"Your estimate of my feelings in this matter can be of very little consequence to either of us," replied Bothwell, without relaxing a muscle of his moody countenance. "It is Miss Heathcote I mean to marry, and no other woman living. You have stooped so low as to come between me and my plighted wife. You have put off my marriage, hindered my happiness, frustrated the desire of my heart; but nothing that you or any one else can do will lessen my love for the girl I have chosen. If I cannot win her back, I shall go down to my grave a broken-hearted man. This is what you have done for me, Lady Valeria."

She was silent for some moments, while she stood looking at him with her pale fixed face, her large violet eyes full of reproachfulness.

"This is what I have done for you," she said slowly, after a long pause: "This is what I have done for you. I have tried to secure to you a life of independence, wealth, the respect of your fellow-men, who in these days have but one standard of merit—success. I have flung myself at your feet, with all the advantages of my birth and fortune—friends who could help you—an assured position; I have offered myself to you as humbly as an Indian dancing-girl, have debased myself as low, made as little of my merits and my position. And all I have asked of you is to keep the solemn vows you made to me in that sweet time when we were both so happy. I have asked you to be true to your word."

"After you had released me from its obligations, Lady Valeria, after you had flung away the old love-token. Was not that an end of all things between us?"

"It might have been. I accepted my doom. And then Fate changed all things. I was free, and there was nothing to hinder our happiness, except your falsehood—your double falsehood. You were false to your truest friend, my husband, when you loved me; and now that you could love me with honour you are false to me."

"I am as God made me," answered Bothwell gloomily, "weak and false in the days gone by, when my love for you was stronger with me than gratitude or honour, but loyal and true to the girl who won me away from that false love. Shall I go back to the old love now because it is my interest to do so? O Valeria, how you would despise me! how all good and true