“Why not, I ask?” he cried, loudly and harshly. “I see by your manner that you imply a motive for that assertion. Again, I ask you, why not?” She struggled passionately with her emotions. She wrung her hands, and looked about her almost piteously for some aid or help by which she might escape from answering this question. “Speak!” he thundered, animated by a rage she had never yet seen him display. It seemed gradually to change her to stone. She drew herself gently up, crossed her hands over her breast, closed her eyes, and said in a low, but clear, firm voice. “I love already--another!” Wilton, who in his excitement, had risen angrily from his feet, now staggered back, and sank into his chair, like one smitten with paralysis. He pressed his hands over his forehead, upon which stood large drops of perspiration. Suddenly he raised his head, and cried hoarsely-- “It is impossible! it is a subterfuge; it is--but if it were true, girl, I have--years, years ago--registered a vow.” “And I!” she exclaimed, hysterically, “unknowing what you had done, I, too, have registered a vow with Heaven. I may not--cannot--will not--break it.” With a loud sobbing cry, she ran from the room, and sought her own, plunged into a deeper grief than any yet known by her, although she had suffered much. She saw that she was to be torn from Hal, and her heart clung to him only the more vehemently. Now she knew, indeed, that she loved him; now she experienced in its fullest force how entirely he was enwoven with all her hopes of future happiness; she knew it, too, at the moment that she was to be robbed of him, perhaps for ever. She gave way to the wildest emotions of sorrow; she flung herself by her bedside upon her knees, and called upon God to help her in her distraction. She pictured Lester Vane approaching her, stealing his arm, snakelike, about her waist, and his hot breath reeking on her cheek. She shuddered, and shrieked. “How may I help myself?” she gasped. “How! how! how! Oh! I am so alone--so alone--none to counsel me--what am I to do? how save myself from this fate? Oh, Hal! Hal! had you but let me perish in the blistering flames. I shall go mad! I shall go mad!” She sank, as she in acute agony vehemently ejaculated these words, prostrate upon the floor, in abject despair, and almost senseless. Wilton remained for some time alone in his library, overwhelmed by the result of his interview with his daughter. A project he had nursed for years, even in his destitution, and especially in his affluence, was destroyed from the quarter in which he least expected to meet with opposition. He was foiled, too, by an event upon which he had not calculated.