"Yes, and the worst of it is it will increase with age, and the end is
so deplorable--idiocy or madness, you know, invariably. Early death is
desirable for Miriam. Her best friends should not wish to see her life
prolonged. It is an inheritance, probably. Her mother died of some
inscrutable incurable disease, I suppose like this."

"O God! O God! it is almost more than I can stand."

I heard him pacing the room slowly up and down, and my impulse was to
part the curtains, to call him to me and comfort him, but I could not;
I was too weak even to speak as yet, and bound as with a spell, a
nightmare.

A whirl of vivid joy passed through me like an electric flash, however,
as I recognized in his disquietude the strength of his affection.
Evelyn's malignant cruelty and falsehood were lost sight of in the bliss
of this conviction; yet my triumph was but brief.

"Evelyn," he said, speaking low, and pausing in his slow, continued
pace.--"Evelyn, just as she lies there sleeping, I would she could lie
forever! Then happiness could dawn for us again."

"Never, Claude Bainrothe!"

"You are unforgiving, my Evelyn! you have no mercy on me nor my
sufferings. You make no allowance for necessity, or the desperation of
my condition. In debt myself, and so long a cause of expense and anxiety
to my father, whose sacrifices for me have been manifold, and before
whom ruin is grimly yawning even now, how could I act otherwise,
consistently with the duty of a son? Nay, what manhood would there have