“You are very pale, Miriam,” he said, as he advanced to me with outstretched hands, and wearing that beaming, candid, devoted look he knew so well how to assume; “are you sure you are not going to be ill again, my love?  You must be careful of yourself, my own darling; you must indeed, for my sake, if not your own.”

I was strengthened now to speak, by the indignation that possessed me, at his perfidious words, his wholly artificial manner, which broke on me as suddenly and as glaringly on the eye as rouge will do on a woman’s cheek in sunshine, which we have thought real bloom in shadow.  I wondered then, how I ever could have been deceived.  I wonder less now.

“Sit down, Mr. Bainrothe,” I said, coldly, withdrawing my hands quietly from his grasp, and recovering with my composure my strength.  “Do not concern yourself about my health, I beg.  It is quite good just now, and will probably remain so for some time.  My spells occur at distant intervals.”

“I know how that is, or has been; but we must try to break them up altogether.  We will go to Paris next year, and have the best advice; in the mean time Dr. Pemberton must try some new remedy for you, or call in counsel.  On this point I am quite determined.”

“I am satisfied that Dr. Pemberton, who understands my constitution thoroughly, is my best adviser.  I shall decline all other medical aid,” I replied.  “Nature is on my side—­I am young, vigorous, growing still, probably, in strength, and shall fling off my malady eventually, as a strong man casts a serpent from his thigh.  I have little fear on that score.  Nor do I think, with some others, that my disease is epilepsy; though, if it were, God knows I should have little need for shame.”

“Miriam, what an idea!  Epilepsy, indeed!” He was very nervous now, I saw.  “Epilepsy, indeed!”—­he faltered again.

“As to those scars, Claude,” I said, fixing my eyes upon him, “they were honorably earned in my sister’s service.  Your father knows the details, which I spare your fastidious ear.  I cannot wonder, however, that they shocked you, with your previous feelings to me.  I do not like to look upon them myself, yet I have never felt them a humiliation until now.”  I knew that my forehead flushed hotly as I proceeded, and my lips trembled.  The reaction was complete.

“Miriam, what does all this mean?” he asked, rising suddenly from his seat as pale as ashes, and clinging to the mantel-shelf for support as he did so.

“It means, Claude Bainrothe,” I said, firmly, “it means simply this:  that our engagement is at an end; that you are free from all claims of mine from this moment, and that henceforth we can only meet as friends or strangers—­as the first, I trust!” I stretched forth my hand toward him kindly, irresistibly.  He did not seem to notice it.

“Who has done this?” he asked, huskily.  “Evelyn?  This is her work, I feel; a piece of her bitter vengeance!  Tell me the truth, Miriam—­who has done this devil’s mischief?”