"So it has come to this," pursued Jerome, brooding in low tones over the matter, "there is but one impediment to your happiness--the man whom you have professed to love, whom you have so basely resigned. With me safely out of the way, you and Rube are all right. You do, it seems, know your own mind at last. And Clara Rutland knows hers at last, and everybody is about to be made incontinently happy--everybody but me! I am left out in the cold! I am left, between you all, stranded on the lonely rock of unbelief, either in a woman's word or a woman's love; and must eat alone, and digest as best I may, all the sour grapes left over from two marriage-feasts. A pleasant prospect, truly! Would to God I had never seen either one of you!" Mell was dumb. She was dumb from conviction. Clara Rutland _had_ treated him badly, and so had she; and she could think of nothing to say which would put in any fairer light that ugly treatment. She marvelled at his patience through it all; she was bewildered that he had thus far, during this trying interview, remained "In high emotions self-controlled." She knew a change must come. She saw through furtive eyes and without raising her head, that a change had already come. Not even a strong will can regulate a heart's pulsations--a heart which has been sinned against in its most sacred feelings. As the storm-clouds sweep up from the west and mass themselves with awful grandeur in battle array, so lowered dark and tempestuous thoughts, pregnant with danger, on the young man's brow. Across his frame there swept a convulsive quiver of emotion; his features took on that hard, stern look of repressed indignation and passion which Mell so well knew and so much feared. With that look upon his face, Jerome was not a man to be trifled with. But what was he going to do? Shake her again? She said nothing when he took hold of her two hands with a grasp of iron. Silently she awaited her fate; tremblingly she wondered what that fate would be. He was only telling her good-by. He knew not how hard he pressed upon those tender hands; he only knew he might never clasp them in his own again. It was a terrible moment--terrible not alone for Mell. One would have thought, seeing how he suffered in giving her up, that she was the last woman in the world; whereas, we know there are multitudes of them, many more estimable in character, some equally desirable in person, with just such wondrous hair, just such enchanting eyes, just such shapeliness of construction, enough in itself to inspire mankind with the most passionate love--plenty of her kind, but none exactly Mell! Sensible of that detaining clasp; knowing his keen eyes scanned darkly and hungrily every quivering feature in her unquiet face; hearing his labored breath and the low sobs wrung from a strong man's agony, Mell felt first as a guilty culprit. If only he would stab her to the heart, and then himself.