Startled by the thick and guttural utterance of his words, Lizzy removed her hands from her face, and stared eagerly at him. Strongly shaken by passion as he was, every line and lineament tense with emotion, there was a marvellous resemblance between her beautiful features and the almost demoniac savagery of his. Had he not been at her side, the expression was only that of intense pain on a face of surpassing beauty, but, seen through the baneful interpretation of his look, she seemed the type of a haughty nature spirited by the very wildest ambition. “Ay, girl,” said he, with a sigh, “you 've cost me more than money or money's worth; and if I ever come to have what they call a 'conscience,' I 'll have an ugly score to settle on your account.” “Oh, dearest father!” cried she, bitterly, “do not wring my heart by such words as these.” “There, you shall hear no more of it,” said he, withdrawing his hand from her grasp and crossing his arm on his breast. “Nay,” said she, fondly, “you shall tell me all and everything. It has cost you heavily to make this confidence to me. Let us try if it cannot requite us both. I know the worst. No?” cried she, in terror, as he shook his head; “why, what is there remains behind?” “How shall I tell you what remains behind?” broke he in, sternly; “how shall I teach you to know the world as I know it,--to feel that every look bent on me is insult,--every word uttered as I pass a sarcasm,--that fellows rise from the table when I sit down at it? and though, now and then, I 'm lucky enough to catch one who goes too far, and make him a warning to others, they can do enough to spite me, and yet never come within twelve paces of me. I went over to Neuwied yesterday to fetch my letters from the post. You 'd fancy that in a little village on this untravelled bank of the Rhine I might have rested an hour to bait my horse and eat my breakfast unmolested and without insult. You 'd say that in a secluded spot like that I would be safe. Not a bit of it. Scandal has its hue and cry, and every man that walks the earth is its agent. Two young fellows fresh from England--by their dress, their manner, and their bad French, I judged them to be young students from Oxford or Cambridge--breakfasted in the same room with me, and deeming me a foreigner, and therefore--for it is a right English conclusion--unable to understand them, talked most freely of events and people before me. I paid little attention to their vapid talk till my ear caught the name of Beecher. They were discussing him and a lady who had been seen in his company at Aix-la-Chapelle. Yes, they had seen her repeatedly in her rides and drives, followed her to the Cursaal, and stared at her at the opera. They were quite enthusiastic about her beauty, and only puzzled to know who this mysterious creature might be that looked like a queen and dressed like a queen. One averred she was not Beecher's sister,--the peerage told them that; as little was she his wife.