to exert what little influence I may possess.  I looked at his flushed face just now, and my thoughts flew back to the golden days of his boyhood, when he was all that a noble, pure, generous nature could make him.  I would ten thousand times rather know that he was sleeping by my little sister’s side in the graveyard than see him disgrace himself!” Her voice faltered, and she drooped her head to conceal the anguish which convulsed her features.

“Beulah, if he loves you still, you will not reject him?” cried Cornelia eagerly.

“He does not love me.”

“Why will you evade me?  Suppose that he does?”

“Then I tell you solemnly, not all Christendom could induce me to marry him!”

“But to save him, Beulah! to save him!” replied Cornelia, clasping her hands entreatingly.

“If a man’s innate self-respect will not save him from habitual, disgusting intoxication, all the female influence in the universe would not avail.  Man’s will, like woman’s, is stronger than his affection, and, once subjugated by vice, all external influences will be futile.  If Eugene once sinks so low, neither you, nor I, nor his wife—­had he one—­could reclaim him.”

“He has deceived me!  Fool that I was not to probe the mask!” Cornelia started up and paced the floor with uncontrollable agitation.

“Take care how you accuse him rashly!  I am not prepared to believe that he could act dishonorably toward anyone.  I will not believe it.”  “Oh, you, too, will get your eyes open in due time!  Ha! it is all as clear as daylight!  And I, with my boasted penetration!—­it maddens me!” Her eyes glittered like polished steel.

“Explain yourself; Eugene is above suspicion!” cried Beulah, with pale, fluttering lips.

“Explain myself!  Then understand that my honorable brother professed to love you, and pretended that he expected to marry you, simply and solely to blind me, in order to conceal the truth.  I taxed him with a preference for Antoinette Dupres, which I fancied his manner evinced.  He denied it most earnestly, protesting that he felt bound to you.  Now do you understand?” Her lips were white, and writhed with scorn.

“Still you may misjudge him,” returned Beulah haughtily.

“No, no!  My mother has seen it all along.  But, fool that I was, I believed his words!  Now, Beulah, if he marries Antoinette, you will be amply revenged, or my name is not Cornelia Graham!” She laughed bitterly, and, dropping some medicine from a vial, swallowed the potion and resumed her walk up and down the floor.

“Revenged!  What is it to me, that he should marry your cousin?  If he loves her, it is no business of mine, and certainly you have no right to object.  You are miserably deceived if you imagine that his marriage would cause me an instant’s regret.  Think you I could love a man whom I knew to be my inferior?  Indeed, you know little of my nature.”  She spoke with curling lips and a proud smile.