“There are things one cannot believe possible till they have happened; and, even then, some strange uncertainty pervades the mind that they have not been read aright. This is one of them. No one could have persuaded me this morning that this prize was not mine whenever I cared to claim it. What a fall to my pride! How little must I feel myself, that after all these years of subtle flattery, I might as well have been with the Vyners--living with creatures of my own nature--giving affection and getting it--cultivating the heart in the rich soil of human hopes and fears, and loves, and trials, and not wearing a mask till it had stiffened into my very features. And he refused me--yes, refused me; for there was no maiden bashfulness in the terms of my offer. I said, I go back to be the niece, or I stay to be the wife; and his reply was, ‘Qu’en dira le Monde?’ I suppose he was right--I am sure he was; but I hate him for it--how I hate him!” She arose and walked the room with long and measured steps for a while in silence, and then burst out: “What would I not give to be revenged for this? Some vengeances there are he would feel bitterly. Should he meet me in the world--the great world, for instance--the wife of some one, his equal, see me courted, and feted, and flattered; hear of me at all times and all places, and learn that this ‘Monde’--that is his god--had adopted me amongst his spoiled children, I think I know the dark despair that would gather around him as he muttered to himself, ‘And she might have been mine--she had been mine for the asking--she offered herself;’ ay, he might say so, if he wished to add insult to my memory; ‘and I only replied, “The world would not bear it!” How I hate him! How I hate him! If I cannot be revenged as I wish, I will be revenged as I can. I shall leave him--go at once. He has passed his last of those blissful days, as he loves to call them; and he shall, awake to see his life in all the weariness of desertion. Not a look, nor a sound; not a laugh, not a song to cheer him. With every spot full of memories of me, he shall be haunted by a happiness that will never return to him. I know that in his misery he will ask me to forgive the past and be his wife; and if the alternative were to be the wretchedness I sprung from, I’d go back to it! “I do not know--in all likelihood I shall never know--what this heart of mine could feel of love, but I know its power of hatred, and so shall Sir Within, though it may cost me dear to buy it.