"Mary, you are not--you cannot own yourself so faithless and so false as to love that other man." "No--Eugene--no. What right have you to entertain such a suspicion? but you--you have not told me what I required." "But I _will_ tell you, Mary--I will tell you everything. I will redeem--I will atone for all that I may have done--I will lay my fate in your hands--I will yield my future conduct, my every action, to your guidance and direction. As your husband, I shall be content to give up all, whatsoever your wishes may cost me. But I will wait no longer; say you will be my wife, Mary: and I swear to fulfil whatever you may impose upon me." He had passed his arm with a kind of reckless excitement round her waist, and now held her tightly towards him, so that her heart beat wildly against his own, though she shrank trembling from the close embrace, and still he repeated, with a voice which sounded to her ear more like hatred than affection: "Say--promise me, you will marry me in a week, Mary, publicly or in secret, as you will; you are your own mistress, no one can prevent you. Speak, say that one word, Mary, and you shall hear everything as truly as if I stood before the judgment-seat of God." But Mary's lips could not utter a reply, her breath seemed choked, a mist was before her eyes, though the once most beloved face on earth was bending down upon her, so near that his very breath fanned her cheek. She saw it, but as in a frightful dream changed into the face of a demon, and she felt that breath to be upon her brow like a burning and a blighting flame. Yet in the strange terror, the perplexity of feeling which had come over her, a kind of fascination, which something in that dark, lurid glance fixed so steadfastly upon her, seemed to enthral her senses. She might perhaps, had it been possible, have forced her lips to give the required promise. But though they moved, they uttered no sound. She grew paler and paler, more and more heavily she pressed against the retaining arm which encircled her, till finally her head lay back on the cushion of the couch; and Eugene Trevor started at perceiving her closed eyes and ghastly countenance, released her from his hold, for she had fainted! CHAPTER XII. For thee I panted, thee I prized, For thee I gladly sacrificed Whate'er I loved before; And shall I see thee start away, And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say-- Farewell! we meet no more. COWPER. Eugene Trevor's first impulse was to step back shocked and amazed; but the first paroxism of passion into which he had worked himself, in a degree cooled by this unlooked for catastrophe, he felt that he had acted in a weak and unreasonable manner.