"Expose that man to the world, then, or kill him! Do not let my shame stand in the way! I can bear any thing, to see him punished as he deserves, for this last cruel deed!" The girl was for the moment beside herself, and she little thought, just then, what was the penalty she braved! It seemed that Carlton Brand better appreciated the peril, or that some other weighty consideration chained his limbs and his spirit, for his was now the flushed face, and he made none of those physical movements which the avenger inevitably assumes, even if beneath no other eye than God's, when he determines upon a course of action involving exposure and possible danger. He seemed to tremble, but not with anxiety: his was rather the quiver of inertiæ than any nobler incitement. "Expose him?--kill him?" he gasped rather than said. "You do not know what you ask, Eleanor! I cannot!--dare not--" "_Dare_ not?" echoed Eleanor Hill, her face that had ordinarily so little pride or courage in it, now expressing wonder not unmingled with contempt. For the first time, she saw the countenance of that man who had seemed to her almost a demi-god, convulsed with pain and shame; and the sad wonder that was almost pity grew in her eyes, as within a moment after, moved by her confidence and assured by it that he need fear no danger of betrayal, Carlton Brand entrusted her with the secret of that skeleton in his mental closet which made him powerless against the bold, unscrupulous and determined Philip Pomeroy. Each had the most dangerous confidence of the other, then; and each realized, if nothing more, a certain painful satisfaction in knowing that the burthen was not thenceforth to be borne entirely without sympathy. But to neither did there appear any hope of unravelling a villany which seemed to both so monstrous.