She looked up at him in surprise and doubt. "You mean to own our marriage, then, do you?" she asked, and there was a faint suggestion of hope in her tone. "No, by George! I don't," he answered quickly. "You don't," she exclaimed. "Then how can I go home? They would--they would think I had disgraced myself. Father would turn me out of doors!" "I'm very sorry for you, then," he answered, coolly. "I see no other resource for you." "Leon, I don't know what you mean!" exclaimed Jennie, in surprise and pain at his careless words and utterly indifferent manner; "you are not one bit like yourself. What makes you talk so strange to your own wife?" She looked up at the handsome man with the tears of wounded feeling starting into her eyes, but all unconscious of the terrible blow that was to fall upon her defenseless head. "You are not my wife!" he replied, with a dark and threatening frown. "_Not your wife!_" she cried, turning as white as death. "Oh, Leon, you surely are going mad! What do you mean?" "I mean what I say," he answered, curtly. "It's time you knew the truth, Jennie. You are not my wife--never have been! The marriage ceremony was read over us, to be sure, but it was only a mock-marriage to quiet your scruples. The pretended preacher was a friend of mine--the wickedest blade in town--with a soul as black as the devil!" She sat still and looked at him, her eyes wild and frightened, her face as white as the snow which whirled past the window. At last she spoke, but her voice was low and thick, and did not seem like her own. "You're joking with me, Leon--you _can't_ mean it?" "I _do_ mean it--it's the truth," he replied, coolly; "come, now, Jennie, don't take it hard. We've had a pleasant time--have we not? And now you can go home to your mother. I am tired of you, I confess it; and I'm going away myself--to Europe, I think. So of course you can't stay here. My sister would turn you out of doors as soon as she found you out. Go home to the farm, and there's a hundred dollars to help you through your trouble." He tossed a roll of bank-notes into her lap with a complacent air as if his munificent generosity condoned everything. The girl had been sitting quite still, looking at him with a terrible pain frozen on her pretty young face, but at his concluding words she sprang up and tossed the roll of notes into the fire as if it had been a serpent. Her dark eyes blazed with passion and her voice shook with rage as she wildly confronted her base betrayer. "Oh, you devil!" she cried, "I would not touch one cent of that money to save your soul from the torments of hell! My curses be upon your head! May the Lord _never_ forgive you for this cruel sin! May you die by the hangman's rope!" The handsome villain laughed mockingly, and turning on his heel walked out of the room. As he passed through the hallway he heard the sound of a heavy fall. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that his victim had fallen senseless upon the floor.