“You do not—­you cannot—­meditate personal violence, self-murder?” He spoke in a voice of agony, that could scarcely be restrained from breaking into its natural tones.

“No—­no—­do not flatter yourselves that I could be driven by you—­by any one to such God-offending,” I hastened to say, for I felt the importance of keeping this barrier of disguise, of ice, between Gregory and myself as a means of safety for a season, and determined that he should not transcend it, if I could prevent an expose, such as his excited feelings made imminent.  “My hopes are dead—­say this to Mr. Gregory—­and I have reason to believe I should fare as well in his hands as in any other’s, knowing him—­as I know him to be—­” and I hesitated here for a moment—­“gentle, compassionate, faithful, where his feelings are fairly enlisted.”

“He thanks you, through my lips, most lovely lady, for dis great proof of consideration; dis’ message, which I shall truthfully deliver, will fill his heart with joy, long a stranger to his breast, for he has feared your hatred.”

“Now go, Dr. Englehart, and let no one come to me without previous warning, for I need all my strength to bear me up in this emergency.  Nor would I meet Mr. Gregory without due preparation—­even of apparel,” and I glanced at my dress of spotted lawn, faded and unseasonable as it seemed in the autumn weather.  “I know his fastidiousness on this subject, and from this time it ought to, it must be my study to try to please him.”

Why was not the fate of Ananias or Sapphira mine after that false utterance?  Why did I triumph in the strength of guile that desperation gave me, rather than sink abashed and penitent beneath it?  And this was the woman who had once lectured on duplicity and expediency, and deemed herself above them!

Bitter and nauseous as was this bowl to me, I drank it without a grimace; so much depended on the measure of deceit—­hope, love, honor, life itself perhaps—­for my terrors whispered that even such warnings as those Gregory had given were not to be disregarded where there was question of success or failure to Basil Bainrothe!  But one alternative presented itself—­escape!  Delay, I scarce could hope for, and, even if granted, how could it avail me in the end?  Those words—­“He will make you dead!” rang in my ears, and seemed written on the wall.  They confronted me everywhere.  It was so easy to do this—­so easy to repeat what the papers had already told the world—­so easy to confine me in a maniac’s cell under an assumed name, and by the aid of my own gold, and say, “She perished at sea!”

It would be to the interest of all who knew it, to preserve the secret, except the poor ship’s captain, and he had been a dupe, and would scarcely recognize his folly, or, if he did, be the first to boast of and publish it.  Besides that, should the matter be inquired into, how easy for Bainrothe to allege that my own family had sanctioned his course to save my reputation!  For innuendo was over on this disgraceful subject.  He had declared openly his base design.