“Not now, I suppose,” I replied; “the girl is as innocent and blameless as any girl living; but I dare say you would sooner befriend the most good-for-nothing Jezebel in the Channel Islands.”

“Yes, I would,” she said.  “An innocent girl indeed!  I only wish she had been killed when she fell from the cliff.”

“Hush!” I cried, shuddering at the bare mention of Olivia’s death; “you do not know what you say.  It is worse than useless to talk about her.  I came to ask you to think no more of what passed between us yesterday.”

“But you are going to persist in your infatuation,” said Julia; “you can never deceive me.  I know you too well.  Oh, I see that you still think the same of her’”

“You know nothing about her,” I replied.

“And I shall take care I never do,” she interrupted, spitefully.

“So it is of no use to go on quarrelling about her,” I continued, taking no notice of the interruption.  “I made up my mind before I came here that I must see as little as possible of her for the future.  You must understand, Julia, she has never given me a particle of reason to suppose she loves me.”

“But you are still in love with her?” she asked.

I stood biting my nails to the quick, a trick I had while a boy, but one that had been broken off by my mother’s and Julia’s combined vigilance.  Now the habit came back upon me in full force, as my only resource from speaking.

“Martin,” she said, with flashing eyes, and a rising tone in her voice, which, like the first shrill moan of the wind, presaged a storm, “I will never marry you until you can say, on your word of honor, that you love that person no longer, and are ready to promise to hold no further communication with her.  Oh!  I know what my poor aunt has had to endure, and I will not put up with it.”

“Very well, Julia,” I answered, controlling myself as well as I could, “I have only one more word to say on this subject.  I love Olivia, and, as far as I know myself, I shall love her as long as I live.  I did not come here to give you any reason for supposing my mind is changed as to her.  If you consent to be my wife, I will do my best, God helping me, to be most true, most faithful to you; and God forbid I should injure Olivia in thought by supposing she could care for me other than as a friend.  But my motive for coming now is to tell you some particulars about your property, which my father made known to me only last night.”

It was a miserable task for me; but I told her simply the painful discovery I had made.  She sat listening with a dark and sullen face, but betraying not a spark of resentment, so far as her loss of fortune was concerned.

“Yes,” she said, bitterly, when I had finished, “robbed by the father and jilted by the son.”

“I would give my life to cancel the wrong,” I said.

“It is so easy to talk,” she replied, with a deadly coldness of tone and manner.