'You know, Miss Valmont——'

'Hear me! listen only to me!' exclaimed Miss Ashburn. Sibella pushed her firmly aside, and bent forward to him.

'I would, Miss Valmont—'continued he in the same irresolute, cowardly, cruel tone, 'I should be glad to serve you.—It will be best that you return to your uncle. It might have been otherwise—but you were always rash and premature.—This is not time for explanations. I am sorry, but I cannot now give you any protection, for I—I am, indeed——Yes, Madam, I am married.'

'Are we not both married?' said she, with an emphasis that thrilled him.—'What is this?—speak Clement!'

'Nay, now, Miss Valmont, you are childish,' said Mrs. Ashburn coldly (Montgomery's bride I mean). 'What man of taste marries a woman after an affair with her?'

'I can bear this no longer,' cried Miss Ashburn. 'Silence, Madam!—Sibella, dear Sibella, turn your eyes on me! Let not their pure rays beam on a wretch so worthless!'

Devoured by emotions over which friendship had no control, she was still deaf to Miss Ashburn. Still those pure eyes bent their gaze on Montgomery, who now trembled, who now could not ever articulate his broken sentences, who, fainting with guilt, supported himself by leaning on the back of that couch on which he had so lately reclined in the ease of his basely purchased triumph. Suddenly starting from this posture, he rushed towards the door.

'Whither, whither, Clement!' exclaimed Miss Valmont. 'Oh, you'll take me with you, Clement!'—And while, without daring to look on her, he disengaged his hand which she had seized, she rapidly uttered in a softened tone of voice—'Clement, lover, husband, all!'

The door shut upon Montgomery, she shrieked. Miss Ashburn would have embraced her, but she would not suffer it. She sunk upon the floor. She crossed her arms upon her bosom, with a violent pressure, as if to bind the agony; her teeth grated against each other; and every limb shuddered.

I had approached her with Miss Ashburn, and, scarcely less affected than Miss Ashburn herself, I was turning away to hide my emotions when she sprang upon her feet in an instant; and, grasping my arm, 'you shall not go without me,' she said. 'Come, Sir: I have told you the way, carry me back to the castle.'