seventh of June, I saw him come up the avenue, and heard him enter the house. He did not mount the stairs, but passed into the drawing-room, and I knew that. Mary Lee was there alone. I went to my dressing-table, and swallowed from a flaçon a glass of Cologne-water. Then, when the shudder and tremor had passed over, I went gently down, and saw the door half open. The door was in the middle of the room; when partially open, you saw a huge mirror, which reflected every thing in the room: they sat behind it. Halfway down the stairs, I heard his voice, soft, low, pleading, tender: God! how long had this been going on! My satin slippers made no noise, and I reached the half-open door and saw them in the glass; he with her hand in his; I watched them there for a thousand centuries; and I heard him say, "Do, dear Mary; do promise for to-morrow;" and I heard her answer, in a timid, gentle voice, which seemed to me full of love, No, Mark, I dare not."
Again he plead to her, and then—my eyes upon the mirror—then he took her hand and kissed it. I saw him do it.
I struck the door open—my hand was black for two weeks—and went in to where he still held her hand, and stood before them, and struck my foot upon the ground.
Mary Lee ran out of the room.
"So," I said to Mark Winston, "you come here for that, do you?"
He looked at me amazedly.
"You even must be base and dishonorable, you even can not respect the sanctity of a friend's house; and you call yourself gentleman."
He grew white, a kind of ashy white; and his eyes grew three shades darker, and burnt like living coals with rage. I feared him not, and said:
"And to love a thing like Mary Lee!"
Then the fierceness passed instantly from his eyes; and a flood of unutterable passion flowed—I saw it flow—into them, and he said:
"I was begging her to intercede with you, Louise, I never loved any but you. But you are so cold, so unaffectionate, so incapable of loving, so ———"
