have waited this hour to gloat over the agony from which a word from you
a year, nay, a month ago--a little month ago--might have saved me and
her!"

Maltravers, as he spoke, approached Vargrave, with eyes sparkling with
fierce passion, his hand clenched, his form dilated, the veins on his
forehead swelled like cords. Lumley, brave as he was, recoiled.

"I knew not of this secret," said he, deprecatingly, "till a few days
before I came hither; and I came hither at once to disclose it to you.
Will you listen to me? I knew that my uncle had married a person much
beneath him in rank; but he was guarded and cautious, and I knew no more,
except that by a first husband that lady had one daughter,--Evelyn. A
chain of accidents suddenly acquainted me with the rest."

Here Vargrave pretty faithfully repeated what he had learned from the
brewer at C-----, and from Mr. Onslow; but when he came to the tacit
confirmation of all his suspicions received from Mrs. Leslie, he greatly
exaggerated and greatly distorted the account. "Judge, then," concluded
Lumley, "of the horror with which I heard that you had declared an
attachment to Evelyn, and that it was returned. Ill as I was, I hastened
hither: you know the rest. Are you satisfied?"

"I will go to Alice! I will learn from her own lips--yet, how can I meet
her again? How say to her, 'I have taken from thee thy last hope,--I
have broken thy child's heart'?"

"Forgive me, but I should confess to you, that, from all I can learn from
Mrs. Leslie, Lady Vargrave has but one prayer, one hope in life,--that
she may never again meet with her betrayer. You may, indeed, in her own