And now, on her sudden return, she beheld that same ring taken by Corway as a size for Hazel's engagement ring, and heard him declare "it shall be a Mizpah of trust, dearest." A sigh unconsciously escaped her; a sigh freighted with the blood of fibers as love tore itself away from her heart. Hazel heard it, and in alarm said to Corway: "What is that? Did you hear it? So like a moan?" He looked around. "You were mistaken, dearest; there is none here but you and me." "Oh, yes, I heard it"--and with a timidity in which a slight sense of fear was discernible, said: "Let us go out in the open." But he held her firm, loath to release the beautiful being clasped close to his heart. "This is for truest love"--and he kissed her again, as she looked up through eyes of unswerving fidelity. "This for never-faltering constancy"--and again their lips met--"And this, a sacred pledge of life's devotion, God helping me, forever more"--and their lips met yet once again. Then they passed out to join Mrs. Thorpe and Rutley. Virginia had witnessed the pledge that meant the blighting of her life's fond hopes, and she had heard his passionate declaration. With straining eyes and a very white face, she watched them depart, till there welled up and gathered thick-falling tears that mercifully shut him out from her sight. She sat down on a bench. She thought of the honeyed words and eager attention with which he wooed her, and made captive her young heart's deepest, most ardent passion, and now his perfidy was laid bare. With an effort she became more composed, and exclaimed aloud: "So, the almighty dollar is the object of Joseph Corway's devotion." And as her indignation increased, she sprang from her seat, and with quivering voice, said: "Oh, God! and I did confide in him so fondly, trusted him so guilelessly, and now our engagement is ended and all is over between us--forever." And notwithstanding her effort to suppress them, sob after sob burst forth. Strong-minded and of powerful emotions, Virginia Thorpe was a queenly woman, a woman whose friendship was prized by her acquaintances, and whose wealth of intellect was a charm to a strikingly graceful figure; and the love that was in her nature once awakened, grew and intensified day by day till at last a steadfast blaze of trust and confidence glorified her personality. Such she bore for Corway--until she discovered he loved Hazel. Oh, what a change then came over her, as her heart yielded up its dearest desire in tears of scalding bitterness. "Oh, Joe! tenderly I loved you, passionately I adored you, and you led me to believe that you loved none but me, yet all the time your heart had gone out to another, and this is no doubt the real reason you wanted our engagement to be kept a secret, and my love, which no woman had greater, was but a plaything!" she thought to herself. She looked at the roses she had unconsciously held in her hand, with infinite tenderness, then crushed them, and broke them.