When the rash words had passed Leola’s lips a great trembling seized upon her, a horror of life she had never felt before, and she longed to scream out aloud to him that she must take back her promise--that she could not bind her beautiful, throbbing young life to oily, unctuous Giles Bennett, the man more than twice her age, and who in no way could be her fitting mate, not if he paid a million dollars instead of what he offered. But when she saw Wizard Hermann’s radiant face, she dared not utter her passionate protest against being sold in the market like a beautiful Circassian slave to the highest bidder. She feared a fit of violence, or that he might fall down dead at her feet of the revulsion of feeling from relief to disappointment. She restrained the words that ached in her throat, and leaned back, helplessly, in her chair, her eyes half shut, her face death-white, her senses reeling, and heard, half-consciously only, the profuse thanks he was pouring out, and the dazzling picture he was painting of her future as a rich man’s wife, even adding, consolingly, that the fat old man might drop off any day from apoplexy, and leave her a rich and happy young widow. “Go, leave me,” she sighed, faintly, and he hurried out, nothing loath, to spread the good news. The next thing Leola knew she was in bed again, and Miss Tuttle was reviving her with cold water on her face mixed with hot tears that fell from her own eyes. “Oh, Miss Tuttle, what are you crying about?” she sighed, curiously. “Is it true, then, that he made me--promise to--to”-- “To marry Giles Bennett; is that what you mean? Yes, he says you promised to marry that wretch to-morrow. Oh, oh, oh, this will break my heart!” and poor Miss Tuttle and Leola, clasped in each other’s arms, mixed their tears together. When they grew a little calmer Leola explained how the promise had been extorted from her by appeals to her gratitude. “Oh, do you think it can be true? Am I only a pauper, taken from the almshouse, for charity’s sake--perhaps nameless, too?” she sobbed, bitterly. Miss Tuttle could give her no comfort, for although she had been Leola’s governess from the age of three, she had never fathomed the mystery about her charge. But she tried to reassure her, saying: “Do not brood over it, dear girl, it is possibly one of old Hermann’s false tales to coerce you into obedience. I should sooner believe that he has appropriated to his own use money that belonged to you, and thinks he can make it up to you this way.” “To live with Giles Bennett as his wife--that old Falstaff of a man!--I loathe the prospect!” sobbed Leola. “While I envy you with all my heart!” exclaimed the governess. “Oh, Leola, how strangely fate plays at cross purposes with human beings! How gladly I would change places with you and become his wife!”