A smile quivered over the young man’s lip, spite of anger; at which Miss Eliza drew in her arms, and clasped her hands, with a deep, deep sigh. “Oh! how grieved you will be when the whole is told you,” she said, seating herself on the chair he had resigned, and clasping her fingers over the hand which still rested on its back. “You have been in that house? Horrible desecration! I shudder to think of it. How you have wronged me. It was not this creature’s poverty that shocked me so, but her depravity.” “Depravity!” “Her artfulness! her duplicity! Do not look at me so sternly. I, too, have been in that tenement-house.” “You, Miss Eliza?” “Yes, even that I have endured, in hopes of saving our Georgiana from a dangerous acquaintance. I have seen the woman who keeps the house—a coarse, vicious creature, buried to her knees in slop-work, who eyed me like a terrier when I went in, and would hardly stop working while I inquired about the people up stairs. A weak person might have been driven away by this rudeness; but I had a duty to perform, and that thought gave me courage. I took out my porte-monnaie and laid some money in her lap; then she told me all—all!” Savage, spite of himself, grew interested; for now Eliza spoke naturally, and seemed really in earnest; her dull eyes lighted up with venomous fire. She was eager as a snake when it charms a bird to destruction. “And what did she tell you?” he said, ashamed of the question as he uttered it. “Mr. Savage, I had seen this girl more than once in the street, talking with gentlemen.” Savage blushed crimson. “With gentlemen, Miss Eliza? I know that you saw her once with me, coming from my mother’s.” “Yes, I saw it. Oh! God forgive you the pang the sight gave me—but that was not all. I said _gentlemen_.” “You saw her with some one else, then?” “I did, and who—a gamester—a blackleg—a hotel-lounger—that Ward, who is so much with young Gould.” “What! Ward? And you saw him walking with Anna Burns?” “Worse than that; I saw them standing together on the public pavement, conversing earnestly.” “But that might have been innocent enough.” “Yes; but was it quite so innocent when he followed her home an hour after?” Savage laid his hand almost fiercely on the spinster’s shoulder. “Woman, is this the truth?” “Do you question it? I saw him with my own eyes enter the house. Georgiana’s infatuation about the girl made me vigilant.” “But this was only once,” said the young man, desperately. “I cannot believe she encouraged him in this impudence.” “This was the first time; but he went there again and again—I know it—I am sure of it; the woman told me so.” Savage clenched his teeth hard, and, going up to the gardiniere, tore a branch from the geranium and flung it angrily from him. “It is impossible—I will not believe it,” he said, with passionate violence. “There is some combination against her.”