"Do you doubt it now?" she asked coldly.

"He told you! Even your skill and craft could not discover it alone,"
he muttered.

"Nay, I told you nothing was impossible to a determined woman. I needed
no help, for I knew more than you think."

He sank down again in a despairing attitude and hid his face, saying
mournfully, "I might have known you would hunt me down and dash my hopes
when they were surest. How will you use this unhappy secret?"

"I will tell Octavia, and make her duty less hard. It will be kind to
both of you, for even with her this memory would mar your happiness; and
it saves her from the shame and grief of discovering, when too late,
that she has given herself to a--"

"Stop!" he cried, in a tone that made her start and pale, as he rose out
of his chair white with a stern indignation which awed her for a moment.
"You shall not utter that word--you know but half the truth, and if you
wrong me or trouble the girl I will turn traitor also, and tell the
general the game you are playing with my cousin. You feign to love me as
you feigned before, but his title is the bait now as then, and you fancy
that by threatening to mar my hopes you will secure my silence, and gain
your end."

"Wrong, quite wrong. Jasper is nothing to me; I use _him_ as a tool, not
you. If I threaten, it is to keep you from Octavia, who cannot forgive
the past and love you for yourself, as I have done all these miserable