“Consult him!” said the poor girl, as the blood crimsoned her ashen brow. “How can I consult him? And if I could, I know his self-immolating generosity. I know, besides, that he loves me so, he would hold me to my word; he loves me so, he would take the shame with me. Consult him! No, no! for many reasons. But without consulting him, I will break with him; since in breaking faith I shall wrong him less than in keeping it!” “Ah, Miss Seabright, that is sophistry! And sophistry is ingenious, but it deceives no one. Duty is very simple, and it never can be mistaken. But I hear the bridegroom and his friends approaching the door. Come, rise! let me re-arrange your hair and wreath.” Mrs. Garnet opened the door, and admitted Dr. Hardcastle and Hugh Hutton. Dr. Hardcastle went up to his wife, who drew him off to a distant window, while Hugh Hutton, seeing his bride reclining, pale and disordered, upon the sofa, hastened to her, stooped over, took her hand, and gazed anxiously upon her, inquiring: “My dearest Garnet, what is the matter? Are you ill again?” She turned her face, whitened and sharpened with anguish, upon him, gazed intently in his countenance, but said nothing for a full minute—then, as by a new and sudden impulse, she exclaimed: “Hugh! I know my birth. Do you?” Dr. Hutton dropped her hand, frowned, and compressed his lips. Garnet’s features convulsed with a spasm of anguish, and she covered her face with her hands. When Hugh Hutton saw that he dropped upon his knees at her side, removed her hands, and kissed her pallid brow, saying: “I know that God created you a beautiful and high-souled woman. I know that by no act of your life have you ever marred His creation. I seek to know”—he broke forth with sudden energy—“I consent to know no more.” “Hugh,” she said, looking at him piteously, “an evil covered up is not an evil cured. Hugh, this marriage must not go on.” “Nettie, you are insane!” “No, never more soberly, sadly sane than now.” “What! would you break your engagement to me—and at the last moment?” “Yes; for a sufficient reason.” “But I will not consent to it.” “I do not ask your consent. I break it.” “Nettie!” “Hugh! stoop down here! nearer—there. Hugh!” she said tenderly, running her pale fingers through the dark waves of hair each side his massive forehead, and holding his head between her hands as she gazed fondly in his face—“Hugh! I know you love me. I have never doubted it one single moment. And I do love you. So much—so much, Hugh, I love you so much that, to save my own immortal soul I would not marry you.” “You dare not refuse me. I claim your plighted faith. I claim you for my wife,” exclaimed Hugh Hutton passionately. “To save you I dare refuse you. To save you I dare break my plighted faith, and take the sin upon my own soul. Hugh! dear Hugh! in one great contest I yielded to you, because high principle was on your side. But this is a different matter; I am as inexorable as Death.”