“Won’t Mrs. Bryson and all the rest at Blackheath Hall be surprised when they hear that I am married, though? And they, hurrying up as fast as they can to get my wedding clothes ready to marry another. I am going to tell you a big secret--now that I am married to you, I must keep nothing from you, you know. If I had not met and married you, I should have had to go home and have married the other handsome fellow, who is so much in love with me, and who has just left Blackheath Hall for New Orleans to arrange matters for us to go there on the wedding trip. Won’t he be disappointed, though, and won’t those black eyes of his flash lightning when he hears what I have done? I half pity him, poor fellow, he was so desperately in love with me--at least, so he said, and every one else said so, too.” John Dinsmore stopped short in the daisy-studded path, his face grown even more ghastly than when he stood before the minister. “Tell me, girl!” he cried, hoarsely, grasping her arm as in a vise, “do I understand you to say that you had another lover to whom you were preparing to be married at the time you came here?” “Oh, what have I said, what have I done, that you are so angry at me?” cried Jess, piteously, cowering from the awful sternness that crept over his face and shone in his eyes. “I want the whole truth, and I must have it, here and now, before we proceed one step farther,” he said, slowly and harshly. “Tell me about this man of whom you speak, when and where you first met him. Who is he? If I have understood you aright, you are as fair and false as others of your sex. While he was making preparations for a marriage with you, you have coolly jilted him by marrying another--for what purpose Heaven only knows! Probably you fancied I had more money. I know they credit me here with being enormously wealthy.” CHAPTER XXVII. DECISIONS. “Down deep in my heart, in its last calm sleep, A dear, dead love lies buried deep; I clasped it once in a long embrace, And closed the eyes that veiled the face I never again might see. I breathed no word, and I shed no tear, But the onward years looked dark and drear, And I knew, by the throbs of mortal pain, That a sweetness had fled which never again Would in life come back to me.” Looking up into the face of her companion, Jess saw that it was ghastly white with horror, his lips trembled with unconcealed emotion. Anxiety and sorrow, mingled with impatience, darkened his brow. She gazed at him wonderingly, and like one fascinated. “Tell me,” he repeated, “is this thing true, that you have thrown over another, a good and true man, who is at this moment making preparations to marry you, to wed me?” She tried to answer him, but his sternness terrified her; she had never dreamed that that handsome face could look so rigid and fierce, nor those dark eyes hold so much fire and scorn. Her trembling lips moved, and all he could hear were the words: “Hard and cruel.”