—sands purr," so he pronounced it. "And
I can assure you——"

"You said you would leave me a few
moments?"

This was like taking the doctor by the
shoulders and putting him out. "To be
sure," he said: "and you must have a glass
of wine, and——"

"For Heaven's sake, leave me," said
Conway, violently. And then Doctor
Bailey retired to consult his Clergy List as
to the value of livings, &c.

   CHAPTER XIX. A SOLEMN PLEDGE.

AT that spectacle of the humbled, prostrate
Jessica, Conway felt something pierce
his heart. Something like shame at his
own theatrical refinings, his triflings and
elegant manipulations of women's hearts,
came back on him. He saw in a second
how such pastime had turned into this ruin
and devastation before him. Jessica looked
up, and was the first to speak. "You see
how it has all ended. Yet if I could have
helped it you would not have seen me in
this way. But I cannot bear up against
all this mortification this degradation.
My father, your father if you only knew
what has been heaped upon me! I could
die this moment. You do not come to tell
me that I have had schemes and——"

"God forbid, Jessica! My humiliation
has been nearly as great, but more deserved.
As I live, I have no part in this. You will
believe me. You saw my father?"

"Yes; he came to treat with the
manoeuvring girl of the country—to show
her 'the thing could not be,' to speak as a
man of the world and of sense, to make all
sure—interpose between the bold designing
country-town girl and the hope of his
family. Oh, that I should have lived to
come to this! I, who tried to behave
honourably, that strove to sacrifice
myself."

"It is dreadful," said Conway, eagerly.
"No one is responsible but me. The wrong
must be repaired. It is gross, scandalous,
and cruel! I can do it still. Let those
who brought ruin on our estates bear the
brunt of it. I am not called on to sell
myself in the market. And yet——Oh, what
have I done! I have done it, Jessica. How
mean, base, and contemptible you will
think me!"

Jessica drew herself up. "First understand
me," she said. "I was ready to
love you, and do love you. After the
degrading charges made against me, that is
over! I may tell you fearlessly I love you,
George Conway, because I can never
belong to you. You know how they laughed
at my firm downright way of speaking.
Well, you may depend on it in this case.
I have lost you for ever for ever I am
lost to you. But let me know all. They
wish you to marry her."

"Yes," said Conway. "And I have just
come from her, and done the meanest,
most degrading——"

"I can understand. And my enemy,
too! This might seem a stab! but no,
she has had to buy you. It is of a piece
with all the rest. The soul that lives on
money and lands, can get nothing but
with money: even love it must buy. I
grieve that you should be her victim!"

"I shall be no victim," said he, passionately,
"if I can but get free. But, no,
no," he added, covering his face with his
hands, "my own dull, selfish heartlessness
was wound in a net about me. For indeed,
Jessica, all the time I loved, and said
I must love you. Under all that strange
misunderstanding I felt myself drawn to
your noble, independent, gallant nature.
I longed to fight the battle beside you.
But a few more days, and in spite of all
our little differences, I must have been
drawn to you for ever: I feel it—I know it.
But a miserable combination of
circumstances have driven me into this. Her
father—my father—our family on the
verge of ruin and disgrace—I cannot,
alas! say that your letters helped to this
misery; for I saw beneath them, and
admired you the more."

Her face brightened. "Well, this is
something to hear; this is something to
sacrifice. I shall be a heroine after all.
After what you have said the blow is
nothing. Oh, I do not care to conceal it now.
I do grudge this triumph to her. I have
said it before, so I may repeat it now when
all is over. I grudge you to her; for I
know that this is but part of that never-
dying dislike of me. Now she has
succeeded, indeed, and humbled me, but not
in the way she imagines. I think of you.
When yesterday I saw that bridge in ruins
all for the one persistent purpose, it seemed
to me to be a presage of a greater ruin to
come. I cannot forgive her. No! Never!
She has robbed you and robbed me; cast
both our hearts together into that stream,
just as her workmen may have flung pieces
of her bridge. But, oh! let me know this
—as something to take with me—that had
all this not happened, you might have felt