"I have been asking myself how I could love you so well, a woman who could condescend to sail under false colors; who knows how to stoop from her high estate, and trick, and juggle, and blind; who has set a trap to catch a mouse, and victimizes her prey; who has spread her toils to obtain a husband under false pretences. I have asked myself many times, 'how can you love that woman?' I have wished that I loved you less--that I loved you not at all! And I would crush it out--this unspeakable tenderness, which shields and defends your image in my heart--crush it out, beat it down, tear it into tatters, grind it into dust under the heel of an inexorable resolve, but that I believe, but that I _know_, Mell, that there is something within you deeper, better, worthier! 'Truth is God,' and the woman who is true in all things is a part of Divinity. But what of the woman who is false where she ought to be true? Let her hide her head in the presence of devils! Be true, then, Mell, be earnest! This frivolous trifling with life's most serious concerns shows so small in a being born to a noble heritage! It is only excusable in a natural _niais_, or a woman unendowed with a soul." Jerome here paused. After a moment spent in thought, he approached his companion very near, and in a voice of passionate tenderness resumed: "My darling! you can never know what hours of torment, what days of suffering, this conduct of yours has cost me. But I believe you have erred more through thoughtlessness, and a pardonable feeling of resentment--more through love turned into madness, than any settled determination to do wrong. But now let it go no further. Hasten to set yourself right with Rube. No matter whether you and I are destined to be happy in each other's love or not; at all hazards be true to the immortal within you. Promise me to undo the mischief you have done; promise me to be a good, true, useful woman, thinking more of duty than your own interest and pleasure. The world is overstocked with butterflies, but it needs good women, and I want you to be one of them--the best! My darling, you will promise me?" Mell was much affected; she hung her head and her bosom heaved. "Do you hesitate?" cried Jerome, mistaking her silence. "Promise me, Mell, I implore, I beseech you!" "Theatricals?" asked a voice in the doorway. It was Rube. "Rehearsing your parts?" he again inquired, coming in. "Yes," replied Jerome. "For are we not all players upon a stage?" "And what play have they decided upon?" next questioned the unsuspecting Rube, who, carrying no concealed weapons himself, was never on the lookout for concealed weapons on others. "I don't recall the name," said Jerome. "Do you, Miss Creecy? It is 'Lover's Quarrel,' or some such twaddle, I think." Mell thought it was something of that kind, but she furthermore expressed the opinion that it would be well-nigh impossible to get it up in time for the delectation of the Honorable Archibald.