“Then thus boldly and shamelessly,” she thundered forth, “you confess deception?” “What man alive would not have remained silent,” said Paul, “when speaking meant so deep a loss? Will you not forgive me?” Even then he thought she would relent, and he approached her. She waived him off, contemptuously. “Away! Approach me not. You madden me,” she said, with frightful vehemence, “I thought that you were baser clay than the dull-witted fools that gathered round. I sighed for the pleasure of attiring those mighty limbs of yours, of decking you with jewels, rich and rare. I deemed you poor, that I might lavish gifts upon you. I thought you nameless, that I might envelop you with the mantle of my own fame and genius. You knew the motive, and yet, by the false pretense of silence, you tricked from my freakish lips that hasty declaration. Be gone! Let me not look upon your face again!” The pallor of death overspread his face, and he exclaimed, almost piteously: “I do confess my sin; yet, does it merit the punishment of exile? A life that’s worse than death?” “Go,” she said, in tones that left no room for hope, “I’ll not unsay a single word. Since you are other than I thought you, this marriage bed shall know you not. This is no place for such a husband.” She pointed to the door, and slowly Paul turned, and gradually his feet bore him away from her presence. When the sound of the departing tread of Paul had passed away, Ouida, with a glance at the inner room, wherein waited her lover, she sank with a sigh upon the floor. Her brain reeled, and consciousness for a period completely abandoned her being. CHAPTER XX. THE METROPOLIS FROWNS. After the nuptial night, Paul disappeared from the knowledge of men. Ouida and Horatio Nugent took up their lives together. New York society indulged in a spasm of virtuous indignation; became monstrously shocked; entered a vigorous protest; and pronounced upon the guilty pair the judgment of condemnation. This mattered not to the lovers. They could see, feel, comprehend, appreciate nothing but themselves, their love and devotion to each other. The outside world was naught to them. They builded their own universe, peopled with the inhabitants of their own imagination, and well satisfied and pleased, existed in it. But New York’s frown, in time, practically meant much to them. It meant the withdrawal of art commissions to Ouida, and the absolute banishment of Mr. Nugent from the practice of his profession. As time relentlessly rolled on, their affairs grew complicated. She was compelled to sacrifice her art treasures, her valued property, her jewels, and still they awoke not from their fevered dream. The day came at last when poverty and want crept in and found them in rude, uncomfortable lodgings in a back street. By a strange fatality, of all her glorious possessions, Ouida had alone retained “A Modern Hercules,” that piece of statuary done from the form of her discarded husband. CHAPTER XXI.