have is at your command, myself, my fortune, my life itself; and you shall always dictate to me every thing that you would have done, and it shall be done at once. Helen, dear Helen, come with me! True passion bears no cold delay, and a rapid resolution, taken in a moment like this, when love speaks out, when opportunity presents itself and there is nothing to oppose, often goes on to happiness the most intense, the most durable, when, if we lose the instant, we give ourselves up to grief for our whole lives. Nay, shrink not from my arms, beloved--for once let me clasp you to a bosom that burns for you alone." Helen did shrink from him, however, farther and farther, as with increasing energy and vehemence, with his eyes lighting up, his words rushing rapidly from his lips in a thousand varied intonations, and his whole spirit moved by the strong feelings within him, he poured forth his passionate solicitations. She shrunk from him, I say, farther and farther, with the small, finely cut ear glowing with the scarlet blood, her cheek as pale as death, her lip quivering, her eye fixed upon her suitor, in terror, surprise, and horror. She could hardly speak. But however Lieberg veiled his purposes under vague, though glowing language, warned as she had been, she understood him only too well, and saw that all which had been told her was true. Her lips moved for a moment without uttering a sound, but at length she murmured, "Monster!"--and turned to ring the bell. Lieberg, however, caught her hand and stopped her, and she stood gazing at him with such a look of horror and pain as, in the moment of the great temptation, the mother of mankind might have worn, had some angel whispered the real nature of the being to whom she listened, and displayed to her mind's eye the endless misery, through unnumbered generations, that was to follow on man's fall. "Beware!" said Lieberg, at length, as he marked that look and read it aright; and his tongue, while he spoke, lost its poisonous melody, his face its fascinating smile--"beware what you do! Remember, Helen Barham, that you are in my power. The moment is now before you to choose between my love and my hate. Be mine, and I swear by all that I hold sacred, such a life of joy and love shall be yours as even your fancy could never dream; but if you reject all that I offer, recollect that your brother's fate is in my hands, his life, his shame, ay--and your own fate, too--that reputation of which you may be idly vain. Disappoint me now, and men shall laugh, and say that she was Count Lieberg's paramour; but that he tired of her, and cast her off in a single day. Your fate, I say, as well as his, is in my hands." "Mine, mine!" cried Helen, with astonishment and terror. "Mine in your hands? What is it that you mean?"