"He sold me, and I lived; this cannot kill me either," she murmured drearily.
"Oh," said the General, smiling, for he began to divine the cause of her stricken attitude. "But remember, Zillah, you were not my first love. I was no boy when we met, and it was of boyish dreams that I spoke."
CHAPTER LVIII.
GENERAL HARRINGTON'S TEMPTATION.
Zillah drew a deep breath, and raised herself up, like a panther which a ball has grazed. A wild illumination shot over her face, and seizing the General's hands, she kissed them passionately.
"Foolish creature," said the General, soothed in the depths of his vanity by this devotion.
"You did love me," she said, with a wistful look; "you did love me?"
"Yes—yes."
"And, it is all over?"
He looked down into her face. No girl of sixteen, in her first love quarrel, ever wore a look so full of anxiety, so tremulous with hope and doubt.