promised me." I smiled tearfully this time.

He bounded off the bench, interrupting me with a low cry. "Do not mock
me, Miriam Monfort," he exclaimed, "if you can do no better. My God! a
baby of five years old suggested as a wife by you, my idol! Oh, yes,
wildly-beloved Miriam, the noblest, truest, as I have ever thought
you--the most beautiful, too, surely, of all God's created beings!" and
he caught my hand wildly.

"George, you are dreaming," I said; "your vivid fancy misleads you
utterly. I am not beautiful--you cannot think so; no one has ever
thought me so; you must not say such an absurd thing of me. It only
humiliates me. But I do believe I still deserve your esteem. Let us
separate now, and to-morrow come to me in a better mood."

"If I _must_ give you up," he murmured, in a low, grieved voice, "let it
be to a husband who loves and appreciates you--is worthy of you. I
cannot tell you all I know--_have heard;_ but of this I am certain:
Claude Bainrothe loves you not! It is Evelyn he worships, and you are
blind not to see it; Evelyn who has goaded him almost to madness already
for her own purposes. I heard--but no, I cannot tell you this; I ought
not--honor forbids;" and he laid his hand on his boyish breast, in a
tragic, lofty manner, all his own, that almost made me smile.

"I know, I know all this, dear George," I said. "Claude Bainrothe
addressed Evelyn before he knew me, and she refused him. Nor have I
craved the honor, this is all that can be said as yet, of being her
successor." I faltered here. "Let this satisfy you for the present. He
has not spoken to me."