summoning all his energies together, he braced himself for the
enactment of that, which under other circumstances, he would have
suffered much rather than become in any sense a party thereto.
Addressing the lady once more he said:--"What, then, was your object
in writing these letters?"

"My object was _to disclose the truth_," she cried, vehemently,
"to denounce you as a blackhearted villain, and to save an
unsuspecting youth from becoming the victim of your deep-laid schemes."

D'Alton bit his lip with passion, but restrained himself. "And you
do all this solely from conscientious motives," he said with a sneer.

"My conscience, like your own, Mr. D'Alton, is pretty well hardened.
No; I have no conscientious motives to impel me to show your true
character to the world; but revenge is sweet, and I have not
forgotten the scorn and contempt with which both you and your
fashionable wife treated me while I was in Montreal. _I_ was not good
enough to touch the hem of your garments, but _she_ was dressed up
and paraded in the drawing-rooms of those who did not know better
than to admit her, and now her b---- daughter is to wed a scion of a
noble house, while _I_ am not even recognized. No, Robert D'Alton,
you will not become respectable and leave _me_ out in the cold,
insulting and spurning me at every turn with your petty offers of
money. I have sworn to have my revenge, and by ---- now that the
opportunity offers, I _will have it_, too!"

She had worked herself up to state of uncontrollable fury. Her eyes
rolled wildly, and she looked like one demented. This gave the devil
his opportunity, for D'Alton, who had been halting between two