"Oh, no! It doesn’t, of course, make any difference if you break my heart, but it would be shocking for the world to know it. I will hush, and leave you to console and reassure Miss Lawrence; but do not expect me to break our engagement. You shall never be free until I die—never!" And then she left them, disappearing through the open window as swiftly and noiselessly as she had come upon them. Livingston met her on the piazza, and, without questioning his presence there, she allowed him to take her hand and lead her to a seat. He looked almost as pale as she, and far more agitated, and when she turned from him, covering her face with her hands, his self-possession deserted him entirely. "Don’t—don’t cry, Valentine. He is not worth a tear, or one pang of that dear heart of yours." "I know his worth; but that cannot alter my feelings now. I love him." "And I—I love you, Valentine, even as you love him." Valentine turned and looked at Livingston. "Then I pity you," she said, simply, but with such pathos that he himself felt like dealing out summary punishment to Black. He did not attempt to plead his own cause then, knowing that it would be not only selfish but worse than useless. She had no thought for him or for anybody or anything but her own sorrow and bitterness. "I wonder if animals can have souls, because if they do I must have been a tigress." She laughed tremulously, crushing up folds of her gown in her hands. "I’d like to kill them, I would indeed!" she exclaimed, her eyes burning through a veil of tears. "You think so now because you are excited," Livingston said gently, as though speaking to an angry child. "Excited! I think I must be mad." "You could not do them any violence, Valentine, were it really in your power. I know your generous, noble nature better than that." But she turned away again, with hidden face, jealous rage melting into anguish. Nobody could ever tell just how it happened. The most reasonable theory was that it caught from some of those vagrant sparks flying up from the bonfire, but deep in the darkness and silence of that night, long after the household had all retired, a little tongue of fire shot up from the roof, growing larger and brighter until its light shone across the woods and fields beyond the river.