This was the first time in her life that Mina Laury had fainted, but strong health availed nothing against the deadly struggle which convulsed every feeling in her nature when she heard her master’s announcement. She believed him to be perfectly sincere. She thought he was tired of her and she could not endure it. I suppose Zamorna’s first feeling when she fell was horror; and his next I am tolerably certain was intense gratification. People say I am not in earnest when I abuse him, or else I would here insert half a page of deserved vituperation—deserved and heartfelt as it is, I will merely relate his conduct without note or comment. He took a wax taper from the table and held it over Miss Laury. Here could be no dissimulation. She was white as marble and still as stone. In truth then she did intensely love him, with a devotion that left no room in her thoughts for one shadow of an alien image. Do not think, reader, that Zamorna meant to be so generous as to bestow Miss Laury on Lord Hartford. No; he was but testing the attachment which a thousand proofs daily given ought long ago to have convinced him was undying. While he yet gazed she began to recover. Her eyelids stirred and then slowly dawned from beneath the large black orbs that scarcely met his before they filled to overflowing with sorrow. Not a gleam of anger, not a whisper of reproach. Her lips and eyes spoke together no other language than the simple words: ‘I cannot leave you!’: She rose feebly and with effort. The duke stretched out his hand to assist her. He held to her lips the scarcely tasted wine. ‘Mina,’ he said, ‘are you collected enough to hear me?’ ‘Yes, my lord.’ ‘Then listen. I would much sooner give half, aye, the whole of my estates to Lord Hartford, than yourself! What I said just now was only to try you.’ Miss Laury raised her eyes and sighed like one awakening from some hideous dream, but she could not speak. ‘Would I,’ continued the duke, ‘would I resign the possession of my first love to any hands but my own? I would far rather see her in her coffin; and I would lay you there as still, as white, and much more lifeless than you were stretched just now at my feet before I would for threat, for entreaty, for purchase, give to another a glance of your eyes or a smile from your lips. I know you adore me now, Mina; for you could not feign that agitation, and therefore I will tell you what proof I gave yesterday of my regard for you. Hartford mentioned your name in my presence, and I avenged the profanation by a shot which sent him to his bed little better than a corpse.’