She entered the sitting room, threw her wrappings on a chair, and began to divest herself of bracelets and necklace.  Eugene lighted a cigar and stood waiting to hear what she might choose to communicate.  Fastening her brilliant black eyes on his face, she said sneeringly: 

“Eugene Graham, did you learn dissimulation in the halls of Heidelberg?”

“What do you mean, Cornelia?”

“Where did you learn to deceive one who believed you pure and truthful as an archangel?  Answer me that.”  Her whole face was a glare of burning scorn.

“Insulting insinuations are unworthy of you and beneath my notice,” he proudly replied.

“Well, then, take the more insulting truth!  What crawling serpent of temptation induced you to tell me you expected to marry Beulah?  No evasion!  I will not be put off!  Why did you deceive me with a falsehood I was too stupidly trusting to discover until recently?”

“When I told you so I expected to marry Beulah; not so much because I loved her, but because I supposed that she rather considered me bound to her by early ties.  I discovered, however, that her happiness was not dependent on me, and therefore abandoned the idea.”

“And my peerless cousin is to be your bride, eh?”

“Yes; she has promised me her hand at an early day.”

“No doubt.  You don’t deserve anything better.  Beulah scorns you; I see it in her eyes.  Marry you!  You!  Oh, Eugene, she is far too superior to you.  You are blind now; but the day will surely come when your charmer will, with her own hand, tear the veil from your eyes, and you will curse your folly.  It is of no use to tell you that she is false, heartless, utterly unprincipled; you will not believe it, of course, till you find out her miserable defects yourself.  I might thunder warnings in your ears from now till doomsday, and you would not heed me.  But whether I live to see it or not, you will bitterly rue your infatuation.  You will blush for the name which, as your wife, Antoinette will disgrace.  Now leave me.”

She pointed to the door, and, too much incensed to reply, he quitted the room with a suppressed oath, slamming the door behind him.  Cornelia went up to her own apartment and, without ringing for her maid, took off the elegant dress she wore, and threw her dressing gown round her.  The diamond hairpins glowed like coals of fire in her black braids, mocking the gray, bloodless face, and look of wretchedness.  She took out the jewels, laid them on her lap, and suffered the locks of hair to fall upon her shoulders.  Then great hot tears rolled over her face; heavy sobs convulsed her frame, and, bowing down her head, the haughty heiress wept passionately.  Eugene was the only being she really loved; for years her hopes and pride had centered in him.  Now down the long vista of coming time she looked and saw him staggering on to ruin and disgrace.  She knew her own life would at best be short, and felt that now it had lost