“I am answered! You love Archer Clifton! You feed your heart upon the secret hope of one day being his wife! And now listen to me, girl!” she exclaimed, every vestige of prudence and self-restraint swept away by her rising passion, “_I, too_, day and night, feed my soul upon one desperate hope—that I live for, would die for, or go to perdition for! _I, too_, love Clifton. I loved him the first hour I ever saw him. I have loved him ever since, only more madly for every obstacle, danger, _duty_ that stood between, dividing us! I have schemed, dared, _sinned_ for him! Twice he has been snatched from me by fate, twice restored to my hopes! Oh! I know my own strong will had much to do with that restoration! He is given to my hopes again! Think you, _now_, that you can win him from me? _No_, idiot! If there be any power in my own soul, on earth, in Heaven, or in hell to help me, I will find it out, and enlist it to give me this one desire of my heart, this man’s love! Since first I ever beheld his face, I have dreamed, hoped, toiled, _lived_ for nothing else! I have suffered for him! Oh! angels and devils! how I have suffered for him! In the days when he came wooing Carolyn, wooing her before the face of _me_, bound with indissoluble chains!—me, loving him as _she_ had no power or conception of loving anything! Many times I was almost mad with despair!—knowing, too, if he would only love me I should be nearly mad with joy! I have sacrificed great prospects for him. Yes! little as you think me capable of it! This summer I might have made a splendid alliance in Richmond—a traveling nobleman—an English nobleman, girl! a baron with an annual rental of thirty thousand pounds sterling—with seats in the three kingdoms, and a palace in Portman Square. I rejected him, when I knew that Clifton was free! In the faint hope of winning Clifton, I would not bind myself. All that I have ever done of good or of evil has had him for its end and object! I was the belle, queen, _idol_ of Richmond. If I schemed and toiled for a position, and gloried in my success, it was that _he_ might hear of it, and his pride might be enlisted for me! You saw me one winter at the governor’s reception! You saw how I was worshiped there! But _he_ was present—and free, and I did not care what the thousands thought of me, I only cared what that unit might think!” Her voice sank into tenderness, and she paused, and dropped her brow into both open hands. But soon raising her head again, she said, “Look at me well! Ay, look! What sort of a rival do you take me to be? If you cannot guess, I will tell you! I am not superstitious or scrupulous, as you are! I am one, who, for my soul’s great passion, will do, or dare, or suffer anything! I ask no leave of earth or Heaven for what I do! I do what I will, or _can_, and take the consequences; earth or Heaven can but punish, and I can risk or bear it!—for there is no pain or loss in the universe that I weigh with