"Love!" she said, looking: at him contemptuously. "Yes; love," he cried. "I'll prove to you my love by saying that now-- even now, knowing what I do, I will forgive the past, and will try to save you from disgrace." "Mr Lister, you force me to listen to you," she replied, "for I will not degrade you by ringing for the servants and having you removed. Pray say what you mean. Hush, Antony, let him speak. Perhaps after he has said all he wishes, he may leave me in peace." "Leave you in peace--you will not degrade me!" he cried, stung to madness and despair by her looks and words. "Look here, Miriam Carr, you compel me to speak as I do before this wretched boy." "Hush, Antony, be silent," she cried, as I started up, stung in my turn by his contemptuous tone. "Yes: sit down, spaniel, lap-dog--miserable cur!" he cried; and I felt my teeth grit together with such a sensation of rage a as I had never known before. "And now, as for you--you blind, foolish woman," he continued, as I awakened to the fact that he had been drinking heavily, "since fair means will not succeed, foul means shall." "Say what you wish to say, Mr Lister," she replied coldly, "for I warn you that this is the last time you shall speak to me. If you force yourself into my presence again, my servants shall hand you over to the police." "What!" he cried, with a forced laugh, "me?--hand me over to the police? You--you think I have been drinking, but you are wrong." No one had hinted at such a thing, but he felt it, and went on. "I came to tell you to-night, that I will ignore the past, that I will overlook your disgraceful intimacy with this low, contemptible compositor, the blackguardly friend of this boy--the man who has obtained a hold upon you, and who, with his companions, is draining your purse--I say I will overlook all this, and, ignoring the past, take you for my wife, if you will promise to give up this wretched crew." There was no answer, but I sat there feeling as if I must fling myself at him, young and slight as I was, in her defence, but she stood there like a statue, fixing him with her eyes, while he went on raving. His face was flushed, and there was a hot, fiery look in his eyes, while his lips were white and parched. "You shall not go on like this," he continued. "You are my betrothed wife, and I will not stand by and see your name dragged in the mire by these wretched adventurers. Even now your name has become a by-word and a shame, the talk in every pot-house where low-class printers meet, and it is to save you from this that I would still take you to be my wife." Still she did not speak, and a look from her restrained me, when I would have done something to protect her from his insults, every one of which seemed to sting me to the heart.