tolerable frankness, relates his story. The younger follows with his
own. But, for a reason which explains itself at the time, the connection
between the two escapes them.

The woman herself next appears on the scene, and with her, the girl
cousin. They are friends of old; and the married one has emerged from
her seclusion at the entreaty of the betrothed, to pass judgment on her
intended husband. The young girl is not satisfied with her own feeling
towards him whom she has promised to marry; though she has no misgiving
as to his sentiments towards her. She is to bring him for inspection to
the inn. And the friend, entering its parlour alone, is confronted by
her former lover, who has temporarily returned there.

A stormy dialogue ensues. She denounces him as the destroyer, ever lying
in wait for her soul. He taunts her with the malignant hatred with which
for years past from the height of her own prosperity she has been
weighing down his. She retorts in a powerful description of the love
with which he once inspired her, of the living death in which she has
been expiating her mistake. And as he listens, the old feeling in him
revives, and he kneels to her, imploring that she will break her bonds,
and secure their joint happiness by flying with him. She sees nothing,
however, in this, but a second attempt to ensnare her; and is repulsing
the entreaty with the scorn which she believes it to deserve, when the
younger man bursts merrily into the room. A wave of angry pain passes
over him as he recognizes the heroine of his own romance, and hastily
infers from the circumstances in which he finds her, that he has been
the victim of a double deception. The truth gradually shapes itself in
his mind; but meanwhile the older man has grasped the situation, and
determined to make capital of it--to avenge his rebuff and to rid
himself of his debt at the same time. He begs the lady to leave the room