It made me smile bitterly.  “All, every thing,” I answered.  “The whole requisition, from first to last, is base, dastardly—­crime-confessing, too—­if seen with discriminating eyes.  Why, if innocent of fraud toward me and mine, should you ask a formal acknowledgment on my part as to your just administration of my affairs, and a recantation of all I have said to the contrary, both with regard to yourself and Evelyn Erle?  Such are the contents of this first paper, the only one that I could, under any possible circumstances, be induced to sign as a compromise with your villainy; for, not to gain my own life or liberty, will I ever put hand to the others, infamous as they are on the very surface.”

“Miriam, this violence surprises me, is wholly unlooked for, and unnecessary,” he remarked, mildly.  “From what Mrs. Clayton has told me, I had supposed that my disinterested care and assiduity with regard to your condition were about to meet their reward in your rational submission to the necessities of your case and mine.  Resume your seat, I entreat you, and let us calmly discuss a matter that seems to agitate you so unduly.  Perhaps I may be able to place it before you in a better light ere we have concluded our interview.  You will sit down again, Miriam, will you not?”

“Oh, surely, if you are alarmed; but, really, I should suppose, with Mrs. Clayton and Dr. Englehart no doubt in call, you need not be so tremulous.  There, you are quite safe, I assure you, in your old place, with the table between us;” and I pointed derisively to the fauteuil he had occupied so gracefully a few moments before, and into which he now slowly subsided.

“Contemptuous girl,” he broke forth at last, “you may yet live to regret this behavior; so far, nothing has been denied you; no expense has been spared for your comfort; in a tribunal of justice you could say this, no more:  ’My guardian, thinking me mad from his experiences of my conduct and health, and regaining accidental possession of me at a time when, under a feigned name, I was thought to be drowned, deemed it best, before revealing my existence to the world, to try and restore me to sanity by private measures, rather than bring upon my malady the eyes of a mocking world.  In doing this, he used all delicacy, all devotion, surrounding me with comforts, and many luxuries, and even humoring my insane whim to have the companionship of a year-old child found with me on the raft under circumstances suspicious—­if no more—­’”

“Wretch!” I gasped, “dare only asperse me in thought, and”—­the menace hung suspended on my tongue.  What power had I to execute it, even if uttered?

“As to my name, I feigned none.  It was my mother’s, is my own, and from her I inherited, or, from the race of which she sprang, the power to remember and avenge my wrongs; to hate, and curse—­and blast, perhaps, as well—­such as you and yours, granted to his chosen children through the power of Almighty God!” And again I rose and confronted him; then fiercely pointed down upon his ignoble head, now bowed involuntarily, either from policy or nervous terror, I never knew, a finger quivering and keen with scorn and rage, an index of the mind that directed it.