Frances could not listen calmly, or see unmoved the strong man's agony; but she never once repented the evil she had wrought, but rather gloried at heart in having so successfully separated him and Amy; and the more so now, because she saw how madly he loved her. She waited quietly, almost afraid to speak, until the paroxysm of grief had exhausted itself. Then she said, timidly, "Too late, Charles. Did you say too late?" But her words roused him to fury again. "I did," he cried; "I said too late; God knows I was too late. A day, only a day earlier, and I should have been in time to save her!" "To save Miss Neville? And from what?" "From what?" he cried; "you are not satisfied with my sufferings, then? but would drain the last bitter drop of agony in my cup--the telling; the naming--Oh, God! She is married!" Married! Frances was not prepared for this. A mist swam before her eyes; a sudden faintness seized her, and she clung to the back of the sofa for support. "Yes, married!" he cried, fiercely seizing her arm. "You would have me tell you, and you shall hear it too, and remember it to your dying day; and I--I saw her only an hour after she was lost to me for ever." But Frances' tongue was stayed, and she never answered one word. "You have driven me mad," he continued savagely, "and it is a mercy you have not a murder on your soul, for, by Heaven, I was tempted more than once to take my life on my road down here? Do you hear?" he cried. "Oh, Charles! don't, don't talk so wildly: you will kill me!" "Kill you! No, I don't wish to do that; I'll only wish you half the misery you have caused me, and that shall be your punishment and my revenge." And then he turned to leave her; but Frances sprang forward and stopped him. "Do not go away like that, Charles. Do not go, leaving almost a curse behind you. I have not been guilty of half the wickedness you accuse me of. I did say Miss Neville did not love you; but--but I believed it." "You did not," he cried. "You hated and then you slandered her." "And if I did, it was your fault; yours, for you taught me to love you." "You love me! It is like the rest false, and a flimsy attempt to palliate your wickedness." "No, no; it is true. I have loved you for years past," exclaimed Frances, sinking on her knees, and hiding her face, "and--and I thought you loved me, too, until _she_ came and took your love away; and then I hated her--yes, words cannot tell how much I hated her. What had I in life worth living for when your love was gone? and I thought if I could only take her away from you, your heart would come back to me again. If you have suffered, what have not I? and she never could have loved you to have married another. Oh! forgive me, Charles, forgive me! and don't--don't hate me." "Forgive you!" he replied. "No; years hence, when we meet again, I may, but not now." "Years hence? Are you going away, then? Oh! you cannot be so cruel!"