“Accursed villain!” exclaimed W——­, grinding his teeth and stamping upon the floor, his anger completely overmastering him.  “His life shall pay the price of my sister’s dishonour.  Madness!”

“You think, then, as I do,” said the husband, with forced calmness, “that confidence, nay, every thing sacred and holy, has been violated?”

“Can I doubt?  If these were his sentiments,” (holding up the letters of Westfield,) “before my sister’s marriage, can they have changed immediately afterward.  No, no; our confidence has been basely betrayed.  But the wretch shall pay for this dearly.”

On the next day W——­called upon Westfield in company with a friend who had possession of the letters, and who read them as a preliminary explanation of the cause of the visit.

“Did you write those letters?” W——­asked, with a stern aspect.

“I certainly did,” was the firm reply.  “Do you question my right to do so?”

“No:  not your right to make known to my sister your sentiments before marriage, but your right to abuse her husband’s confidence after marriage.”

“Who dares say that I did?”

“I dare say it,” returned the brother, passionately.

“You!  Bring your proof.”

“I want no better proof than the fact that, entertaining sentiments such as are here avowed, you have visited her at all times, and under nearly all circumstances.  You have abused a husband’s and a brother’s confidence.  You have lain like a stinging viper in the bosom of friendship.”

“It is false!” replied Westfield, emphatically.

W——­’s feelings were chafed to the utmost already.  This remark destroyed entirely the little self-control that remained.  He sprang toward Westfield, and would have grappled his throat, had not his friend, who had feared some such result, been perfectly on his guard, and stepped between the two men in time to prevent a collision.

Nothing was now left W——­but to withdraw, with his friend.  A challenge to mortal combat followed immediately.  A meeting was the result, in which Westfield was severely wounded.  This made public property of the whole matter; and as public feeling is generally on the side of whoever is sufferer, quite a favourable impression of the case began to prevail, grounded upon the denial of Westfield to the charge of improper intimacy with Mrs. Miller.  But this feeling soon changed.  The moment Mrs. Miller heard that Westfield had been seriously wounded by her brother, she flew to his bedside, and nursed him with unwearying devotion for three weeks; when he died of inflammation arising from his wound.