"I _am_ ill," she cried. "God only knows what I suffered last night. Are you still relentless in your cruel purpose?" "You use hard words," he said, flinching under her scorn. "Is it cruel to love you, and wish you for my own?" "It is cruel to try to force me into compliance with your wishes," she answered, with a passing flash of indignation. "You mistake. I have not tried to force you. I merely gave you a choice of terms," he replied. "Scylla and Charybdis," murmured the girl, disdainfully. "As you will," he replied; but in his heart he said, cruelly: "You find it hard, fair lady, to tolerate a master in practice, however fine it may appear in theory." She sat still, looking dreamily into the rushing river, a look of despair frozen on her white face. "You may have guessed why I brought you here," he said. She made him no answer. The cold despair deepened in the lovely, downcast eyes. "I am impatient for my answer," he went on. "Are you going to be kind to your mother, Irene; kind to yourself, and merciful to me?" She turned and looked at him, with the fire of scorn flashing all over her beautiful face. "If you mean am I going to sacrifice myself for my mother's sake, I answer yes," she said. "Here is my hand. Take it. But it is empty--there is no heart in it. There never will be. I shall never love you, were I twenty times your wife. I shall always hate you for driving me to the wall, for making me untrue to myself." Unheeding her wild words he took the hand and kissed it, but she tore it madly away. It rushed over her drearily how strange it was for Guy Kenmore's widowed bride to be thus plighting her hand to another almost in the first hour of her bereavement. CHAPTER XXIX. Mr. Revington duly announced his betrothal to the inhabitants of the villa. Congratulations followed of course, but he could not flatter himself that there was any heart in them. Mr. Stuart was openly surprised and inwardly disgusted. "To think that a girl of such beauty and soul as Irene should stoop to mate with that weak, guitar-playing dandy," he said to himself. Brown and Jones were envious of Revington's good luck. The ladies, with the exception of Mrs. Leslie, thought it quite too good a match for the mysterious Miss Berlin. "My dear," said Mrs. Leslie, the first time she could draw Irene aside, "I do not know how to congratulate you. You have surprised me too much. I never dreamed that you were in love with Julius Revington." They were alone on the wide balcony, and the opaline hues of sunset sparkled on the blue horizon. Irene looked very pale and grave in the brilliant light. She gazed sadly at her friend. "Does it follow that I am in love with him because I have promised to be his wife?" she asked, almost bitterly. Mrs. Leslie started and gazed keenly at the fair young face.