"She told me that Vera was delicate, sensitive, helpless and friendless, and so good and sweet that none could help loving her. She declared she could not die in peace without leaving her in the care of a kind protector." "A fine protector a young man would make for a young girl," Mrs. Cleveland sneers, with cutting irony. "You do not understand, I think," Leslie answers her, gravely. "She wished me to make her my wife." "Your wife! Marry Vera Campbell!" Ivy shrieks out wildly. He trembles at the passionate dismay of her voice, but answers, desperately: "Vera Noble, now, Ivy, for her mother's grief overcame my reason, and I made her my wife last night by the side of her dying mother." CHAPTER V. Following that desperate declaration from Leslie Noble, there is a scream of rage and anguish commingled. Ivy has fallen back on the sofa in violent hysterics. Mrs. Cleveland glares at him reproachfully. "You have killed her, my poor Ivy!" she cries. "She loved you, and you had given her reason to think that--you meant to marry _her_." "I _did_ so intend," he answers, on the spur of the moment. "I was only waiting to be sure of my feelings before I declared myself. But now, this dreadful marriage has blighted my life and hers. Poor little Ivy." "I could almost curse my sister in her grave!" Mrs. Cleveland wails, wringing her hands. "Curse me rather," Leslie answers, bitterly, "that I was weak enough to be deluded into such a mesalliance. She was ill and dying, she barely knew what she did; but I was in full possession of my senses. Why did I let my weak pity overcome me, and make me false to the real desire of my heart?" "Falsest, most deceitful of men!" sobs Ivy from her sofa, and Leslie takes her white hand a moment in his own, pressing it despairingly to his lips as he cries: "You must forgive me, Ivy, I did not know how well I loved you until I had lost you." Mrs. Cleveland interposes sternly. "Come, come, I cannot allow any tender passages between you two. If Leslie intends for this nefarious marriage to stand, it will be best that he shall remain a stranger henceforth to us both." "To stand?" Leslie repeats, looking at her like one dazed. "Yes," she answers, meaningly. "I ask you, Leslie, if such a marriage as this can be legal and binding?" "Oh, yes, it is perfectly so," he answers. "Do you love her? Oh, Leslie, do you love that dreadful girl?" wails Ivy, from her sofa. He shakes his head, Mrs. Cleveland having interdicted other intercourse. "Do you intend to live with her?" Mrs. Cleveland queries, significantly. "Pray, what else can I do?" Mr. Noble queries, bewildered, and Ivy groans, lugubriously. "Oh, nothing, nothing," the lady answers, with a scornful laugh. "But if it were me who had been deluded into such a marriage with a low and mercenary girl, I am sure that nothing could induce me to live with her. I would either divorce her, or pension her off."