“Henry!—­what!—­when I can not be your wife!”

“You can be my wife; my wife in reality, as you are his in name and nothing else.  It is idle to talk as if we were in some ordinary situation.  There are plenty of countries that would disown such a marriage as yours, a mere ceremony obtained by fraud, and canceled by a stroke with a dagger and instant separation.  Oh, my darling, don’t sacrifice both our lives to a scruple that is out of place here.  Don’t hesitate; don’t delay.  I have a carriage waiting outside; end all our misery by one act of courage, and trust yourself to me; did I ever fail you?”

“For shame, Henry! for shame!”

“It is the only way to happiness.  You were quite right; if I kill that wretch we shall be parted in another way, always parted; now we can be together for life.  Remember, dearest, how I begged you in this very room to go to the United States with me:  you refused:  well, have you never been sorry you refused?  Now I once more implore you to be wise and brave, and love me as I love you.  What is the world to us?  You are all the world to me.”

“Answer him, Jael; oh, answer him!”

“Nay, these are things every woman must answer for herself.”

“And I’ll take no answer but yours.”  Then he threw himself at her feet, and clasping her in his arms implored her, with all the sighs and tears and eloquence of passion, to have pity on them both, and fly at once with him.

She writhed and struggled faintly, and turned away from him, and fell tenderly toward him, by turns, and still he held her tight, and grew stronger, more passionate, more persuasive, as she got weaker and almost faint.  Her body seemed on the point of sinking, and her mind of yielding.

But all of a sudden she made a desperate effort.  “Let me go!” she cried.  “So this is your love!  With all my faults and follies, I am truer than you.  Shame on your love, that would dishonor the creature you love!  Let me go, sir, I say, or I shall hate you worse than I do the wretch whose name I bear.”

He let her go directly, and then her fiery glance turned to one long lingering look of deep but tender reproach, and she fled sobbing.

He sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands.

After a while he raised his head, and saw Jael Dence looking gravely at him.

“Oh, speak your mind,” said he, bitterly.

“You are like the world.  You think only of yourself; that’s all I have to say.”

“You are very unkind to say so.  I think for us both:  and she will think with me, in time.  I shall come again to-morrow.”

He said this with an iron resolution that promised a long and steady struggle, to which Grace, even in this first encounter, had shown herself hardly equal.

Jael went to her room, expecting to find her as much broken down as she was by Henry’s first visit; but, instead of that, the young lady was walking rapidly to and fro.