“Oh! what a selfish and cruel wretch I am! What a change has come over me! I have turned into a demon! I must be a demon to hate those who love me! To hate them for loving me! Oh, I wish I were dead! I wish I had never lived!” she sobbed, throwing herself down upon the sofa in an agony of self-reproach and self-loathing. David Lindsay walked up and down in the adjoining room, his steps noiseless on the soft carpet. He was sorely perplexed in mind and distressed at heart, only certain of two obligations resting upon him—not to intrude on her privacy, yet not to desert her in her weakness and distraction. She was but a child, he felt, a child who had grown up under very peculiar circumstances, so that she must not be judged as ordinary children or young girls. And what a heavenly child she had been! How full of love, how free from selfishness! Now she seemed indeed to have been driven into a state akin to insanity. Had he, her old playmate, who loved her better than his own life, had any hand in this? He could not think so. He, with all his honesty of inquiry, could not see any other way than that they had taken to save her from an odious marriage, which her religious faith would have condemned even if her own heart had not revolted against it—a marriage into which she could not have been compelled, of course, but into which she might have been, through her pity, persuaded. Now she was safe, at least from that danger. Meanwhile, what was now his duty to her? Not to intrude on her, and not to abandon her, certainly. But afterwards? He now remembered all that she had told him, while they sat together on the steamboat deck, concerning her father’s will, and how, on her attaining the age of eighteen, or on her marriage, she was to enter upon the possession of her estate, and the authority of her guardian was to cease; that this will had been made in Washington city, and recorded in the office of the Register of Wills. He determined to go thither and examine the document for himself. He rapped gently at Gloria’s door. “What do you want?” she inquired, in smothered tones. “I am going out for an hour. Shall I send any one to you?” “No, thanks; I want nothing.” He turned away and went down stairs and out of the house, and bent his steps to the City Hall. On inquiring of the proper officers he obtained a view of the folio containing the record of the testament he sought. Having read it over, he thought he saw his way clearly enough towards placing his young bride in her own house, surrounded by her own servants, and safe from any annoyance from her late guardian. But he concluded that it would be better to take a lawyer’s opinion. He had noticed, as he came along that morning, almost every front basement on the north side of Louisiana Avenue, opposite the City Hall, to be the office of some attorney-at-law. He therefore knew where to go to look for one.