"Besides," said he, standing up, "I don't care if she was the angel Gabriel. I don't want any of Biggs's nieces. I won't have them. By Jove! And am I to be entrapped into a plan like that? I want Ethel. And what's more, I will have her, or go without. The child-angel may be the very identical one that my mother selected, and if you assert that she is, I'll be hanged if I'll argue the point. I only say this, that it doesn't alter my position in the slightest degree. I don't want her. I won't have her. I don't want to see her. I don't care if the whole of Biggs's nieces, in solemn conclave, with old Biggs at their head, had formally discussed the whole matter, and finally resolved unanimously that she should be mine. Good Lord, man! don't you understand how it is? What the mischief do I care about any body? Do you think I went through that fiery furnace for nothing? And what do you suppose that life on the island meant? Is all that nothing? Did you ever live on an island with the child-angel? Did you ever make a raft for her and fly? Did you ever float down a river current between banks burned black by raging fires, feeding her, soothing her, comforting her, and all the while feeling in a general fever about her? You hauled her out of a crater, did you? By Jove! And what of that? Why, that furnace that I pulled Ethel out of was worse than a hundred of your craters. And yet, after all that, you think that I could be swayed by the miserable schemes of a lot of Biggs's nieces! And you scowl at a fellow, and get huffy and jealous. By Jove!" After this speech, which was delivered with unusual animation, Hawbury lighted a cigar, which he puffed at most energetically. "All right, old boy," said Dacres. "A fellow's apt to judge others by himself, you know. Don't make any more set speeches, though. I begin to understand your position. Besides, after all--" Dacres paused, and the dark frown that was on his brow grew still darker. "After all what?" asked Hawbury, who now began to perceive that another feeling besides jealousy was the cause of his friend's gloomy melancholy. "Well, after all, you know, old fellow, I fear I'll have to give her up." "Give her up?" "Yes." "That's what you said before, and you mentioned Australia, and that rot." "The more I think of it," said Dacres, dismally, and regarding the opposite wall with a steady yet mournful stare--"the more I think of it, the more I see that there's no such happiness in store for me." "Pooh, man! what is it all about? This is the secret that you spoke about, I suppose?" "Yes; and it's enough to put a barrier between me and her. Was I jealous? Did I seem huffy? What an idiot I must have been! Why, old man, I can't do any thing or say any thing." "The man's mad," said Hawbury, addressing himself to a carved tobacco-box on the table.