"Look after him? no, I didn't; I knew he was doing well enough; I came to look after you." "Is there anything you want, which I can get you," said Minny, approaching the door, and laying her hand on the knob. "No, my beauty," returned the other, placing his back against the door, and turning the key in the lock, while he placed his lamp on the table beside him, "there's nothing I want which you can _get_ me, but there's something I want which you can _give_ me, and that's a kiss. Come here." He seated himself, and motioned for her to come and sit upon his knee. Minny grew deathly pale, and laid her hand upon her heart, to still its tumultuous throbbing. There was no way of escape; the window was too high from the ground, and the door was locked, and her persecutor had the key. Striving to conceal her agitation, she said, as quietly as she could:-- "I cannot give you that, Bernard; such manifestations on your part, you should remember, belong to your wife and child." "And isn't the mother of my boy my wife? and did you not just confess you were his mother?" "In the absence of his rightful mother, I have striven to fill her place; and if you choose to look upon me in such a light, show me the respect which is my due. Leave my room, sir!" "By Jove, girl, you are saucy; come here, and sit upon my knee. You're a little wrathful just now, but all the prettier for that. Come." Minny rose up, with her face ashy pale, and stood in her calm womanly dignity before him. "Are you not ashamed to show a defenceless woman such an outrage, in your own house? I have seen the time when Bernard Wilkins would have scorned so cowardly an act as this." "That was when he had drank less wine, and lost less gold; come, there is no use in parleying, come here by me." He started forward, and grasping her rudely by the wrist, drew her toward him. Minny struggled wildly, but his hold was firm. "Oh!" she exclaimed, as with a violent effort she wrenched her wrist from his grasp, "for Heaven's sake, Bernard, remember what is due to your absent wife, what belongs to yourself, what in duty bound you owe to me. Think of your innocent babe, and be a man once more. I beg you leave me to myself." "Nonsense, girl; haven't I a right here? Didn't I marry you once, and doesn't that make my presence here proper and right? Have you forgotten that?" "No, never! but _you_ forgot it. _You_ made the bonds, which united us, illegal, and took to your heart another bride. You have forgotten this, too, it would seem, or you would not thus insult me. I am no more to you now than if those days had never been." "Zounds! my pretty one, we think differently on that score," said Wilkins, throwing his arms about her slender waist. "Let go your hold this instant!" cried Minny, "or I will shriek for help, and expose you to the neighborhood."