Sad that so small a murmur should destroy it for ever!

‘What?’ cried the Countess, bursting from his arm.

‘Go?’ she emphasized with the hardness of determined unbelief, as if plucking the words, one by one, out of her reluctant ears.  ’Go to Lady Jocelyn, and tell her I wrote the letter?’

‘You can do no less, I fear,’ said Evan, eyeing the floor and breathing a deep breath.

’Then I did hear you correctly?  Oh, you must be mad-idiotic!  There, pray go away, Evan.  Come in the morning.  You are too much for my nerves.’

Evan rose, putting out his hand as if to take hers and plead with her.  She rejected the first motion, and repeated her desire for him to leave her; saying, cheerfully

‘Good night, dear; I dare say we shan’t meet till the morning.’

‘You can’t let this injustice continue a single night, Louisa?’ said he.

She was deep in the business of arrangeing a portion of her attire.

‘Go-go; please,’ she responded.

Lingering, he said:  ‘If I go, it will be straight to Lady Jocelyn.’

She stamped angrily.

‘Only go!’ and then she found him gone, and she stooped lower to the glass, to mark if the recent agitation were observable under her eyes.  There, looking at herself, her heart dropped heavily in her bosom.  She ran to the door and hurried swiftly after Evan, pulling him back speechlessly.

‘Where are you going, Evan?’

‘To Lady Jocelyn.’

The unhappy victim of her devotion stood panting.

‘If you go, I—­I take poison!’ It was for him now to be struck; but he was suffering too strong an anguish to be susceptible to mock tragedy.  The Countess paused to study him.  She began to fear her brother.  ‘I will!’ she reiterated wildly, without moving him at all.  And the quiet inflexibility of his face forbade the ultimate hope which lies in giving men a dose of hysterics when they are obstinate.  She tried by taunts and angry vituperations to make him look fierce, if but an instant, to precipitate her into an exhibition she was so well prepared for.

’Evan! what! after all my love, my confidence in you—­I need not have told you—­to expose us!  Brother? would you?  Oh!’

‘I will not let this last another hour,’ said Evan, firmly, at the same time seeking to caress her.  She spurned his fruitless affection, feeling, nevertheless, how cruel was her fate; for, with any other save a brother, she had arts at her disposal to melt the manliest resolutions.  The glass showed her that her face was pathetically pale; the tones of her voice were rich and harrowing.  What did they avail with a brother?  ‘Promise me,’ she cried eagerly, ’promise me to stop here—­on this spot-till I return.’