But Marion would not take them. She implored me, for my soul's sake and her satisfaction, to make full restoration to the man I had blackmailed, and so vehemently and persistently did she entreat me that, in very weakness, I at length gave way, only stipulating that she should retain sufficient money to pay the debts my illness had incurred, and to keep her for a little while till she should find employment. While she was packing up the jewels to send to Sir Charles Venner, I fell asleep, and when I awoke I was once more a pauper. It was very curious. From that instant I grew better, and hour by hour my strength increased. On the evening of the fourth day, thereafter, I arrived, after much reflection, at the conclusion that Marion had prevailed upon the physicians to pretend that I was dying in order to rob me of the jewels. I also believed her story that she had restored them to Sir Charles to be a falsehood, and I entertained no doubt whatever but that she would presently desert and leave me to my fate. Naturally, I kept these opinions to myself. It was useless to discuss them, and I told myself that such a course would only hasten her departure. I thought her something like a fiend in human form, but she was very beautiful, and I loved her so madly that all I wished for in the world was to retain her by my side as long as possible. With that end in view, I played the hypocrite, and let her think me every simple kind of fool she wished. I derived a bitter-sweet satisfaction from the game, for on her part she pretended to be ardently attached to me. We spent the hours building castles in the air, weaving pretty fancies of love in a cottage, and a long life shared together. She said she had a friend, an old kind-hearted gentleman, whom she could depend upon to find me some employment, as soon as I was perfectly restored to health. I was then to turn over a new leaf, and live an honest, hard-working life, and she would be my wife, my comforter, my devoted helpmate, to the end. It was a very pretty dream, but the strange and bitter feature of it was that I sighed for it to come true. I was tired of my rascality. My long illness had made a changed man of me, and if I could have believed in Marion's avowals, I would have been as happy as a king to mend my ways for her sweet sake, and never do a shady thing again. Once or twice I tried my best to induce her to explain to me the mysteries connected with Sir Charles Venner's secret society of consumptives which I had been unable to fathom. On that subject, however, she maintained an adamantine reticence, and when I ventured to press her in love's name, she entreated me in tears to forbear, saying that she was bound by an oath which she could not break. Her art was perfect, for she used to add: "How, dear Agar, could you trust me, if you proved me capable of breaking a solemn oath, sworn to God?"