"Your wife! Marry Vera Campbell!" Ivy shrieks out wildly.
He trembles at the passionate dismay of her voice, but answers, desperately:
"Vera Noble, now, Ivy, for her mother's grief overcame my reason, and I made her my wife last night by the side of her dying mother."
[CHAPTER V.]
Following that desperate declaration from Leslie Noble, there is a scream of rage and anguish commingled. Ivy has fallen back on the sofa in violent hysterics. Mrs. Cleveland glares at him reproachfully.
"You have killed her, my poor Ivy!" she cries. "She loved you, and you had given her reason to think that—you meant to marry her."
"I did so intend," he answers, on the spur of the moment. "I was only waiting to be sure of my feelings before I declared myself. But now, this dreadful marriage has blighted my life and hers. Poor little Ivy."
"I could almost curse my sister in her grave!" Mrs. Cleveland wails, wringing her hands.
"Curse me rather," Leslie answers, bitterly, "that I was weak enough to be deluded into such a mesalliance. She was ill and dying, she barely knew what she did; but I was in full possession of my senses. Why did I let my weak pity overcome me, and make me false to the real desire of my heart?"