Believing that you knew all my history and that your aversion was based upon it, I was too proud to show you my affection.  Douglass Manning was as much my friend as I permitted any man to be; we had travelled together through Arabia, and with his handwriting I was familiar.  Suspecting your literary schemes, and dreading a rival in your ambition, I wrote to him on the subject, discovered all I wished to ascertain, and requested him, for my sake, to reconsider and examine your Ms. He did so to oblige me, and I insisted that he should treat your letters and your Ms. with such severity as to utterly crush your literary aspirations.  Oh, child! do you see how entirely you fill my mind and heart?  How I scrutinize your words and actions?  Oh, my darling—­”

He paused, and leaned over her, putting his hand on her head, but she shook off his touch and exclaimed: 

“But Gertrude!  Gertrude!”

“Be patient, and you shall know all; for as God reigns above us, there is no recess of my heart into which you shall not look.  It is, perhaps, needless to tell you that Estelle came here to marry me for my fortune.  It is not agreeable to say such things of one’s own cousin, but to-day I deal only in truths, and facts sustain me.  She professes to love me! has absolutely avowed it more than once in days gone by.  Whether she really loves anything but wealth and luxury, I have never troubled myself to find out; but my mother fancies that if Estelle were my wife, I might be less cynical.  Once or twice I tried to be affectionate toward her, solely to see what effect it would have upon you; but I discovered that you could not easily be deceived in that direction—­the mask was too transparent, and beside, the game disgusted me.  I have no respect for Estelle, but I have a shadowy traditional reverence for the blood in her veins which forbids my flirting with her as she deserves.  The very devil himself brought Agnes here.  She had married a rich old banker only a few months after Murray’s death, and lived in ease and splendor until a short time since, when her husband failed and died, leaving her without a cent.  She knew how utterly she had blasted my life, and imagined that I had never married because I still loved her!  With unparalleled effrontery she came here, and trusting to her wonderfully preserved beauty, threw herself and her daughter in my way.  When I heard she was at the parsonage, all the old burning hate leaped up strong as ever.  I fancied that she was the real cause of your dislike to me, and that night, when the game of billiards ended, I went to the parsonage for the first time since Murray’s death.  Oh! the ghostly thronging memories that met me at the gate, trooped after me up the walk, and hovered like vultures as I stood in the shadow of the trees, where my idol and I had chatted and romped and shouted and whistled in the far past, in the sinless bygone!  Unobserved I stood there, and looked once more, after the lapse