Her eyes shone with inward fire; her cheeks glowed; her parted lips trembled. I do not think we had ever seen her half so beautiful. Cornelius looked at her, and smiled bitterly. "I pity you," she said, with some scorn; "I pity you, to deride a feeling you cannot feel: know that I at least speak not without the knowledge." "Oh, I know it," he exclaimed, involuntarily. "You know it?" "Yes," he replied, more slowly, "and I have known it long. One, whose pride you had stung, found means to procure letters written by you some years ago, and which proved to rue how ardently you had been attached to another--now dead, it is true. For a whole day I thought to give you up; but I was weak, I burned the letters, and said nothing. I loved you well enough to forgive you the tacit deceit; too well to think of humbling you by confessing that I knew it, and too jealously perhaps not to be glad to annihilate every token of a previous affection." "Humbling me!" said Miriam, rising; "know that it is my pride. I felt not like you, Cornelius; I would have made myself the slave of him whom I loved, had he wished it." She folded her hands on her bosom, like one who gloried in her subjection, and continued-- "Proud and wilful as I am, _he_ could bend me to his will. I mistook your energy for power, and thought you could do so too. I mistook my own heart, and thought I could feel again as I once had felt. Since I discovered the twofold mistake, there has been nothing save weariness and vexation of spirit to me. I knew it should end--do not wonder I am now glad and relieved that it is ended." She spoke in the tone with which she had said "I am weary;" the lustre had left her eyes, the colour her cheek; her mien was again languid and careless. She cast an indifferent look around her, drew the silk scarf which she wore, closer over her shoulders, turned away, and left the room without once looking back. A deep silence, that seemed as if it never could end, followed her departure. Kate sat in her usual place, her look sadly fixed on her brother. His face was supported and partly shaded by his hand. He neither moved nor spoke. At length his sister rose and went up to him. She laid her hand on his shoulder, and stooping, said gently-- "Cornelius!" He looked up at her wistfully, and said, in a low tone-- "Kate, I thought her little less than an angel; what a poor dupe I have been!" "But you will bear it," she said earnestly, "I know you will." "Yes," he answered, though his lip trembled a little as he said it; "it is hard, but it is not more than a man can bear." He rose as he spoke. "Where are you going?" asked Kate, detaining him. "Out; do not be uneasy about me, Kate." "But it is pouring fast." "Never mind." His lips touched her brow--he left the room--we heard the street-door close upon him, and in the silence which followed, the low, rushing sound of the rain.