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drive his image from that pure shrine, your heart!... now you will do a tardy act of justice, Ellen, and recognise my wild and boundless love-a love, which has existed on itself, unfed by Hope-a love, which the ruin of your fortunes has but rendered more wildly deep! Ellen, I am noble, I am rich enough to surround my heart's darling with all that makes life graceful and sweet! Speak, Ellen, say that I may hope."

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No, no!" said Ellen, wildly weeping, “I am grateful for your love-I am sensible of your generosity; but my heart is broken-I can never be yours!"

"You can-you shall, Ellen!" He grasped her arm, and Ellen screamed aloud; for he took a pistol from his pocket, and said"Ellen, swear you will be mine, or I am a corpse at your feet!"

He had scarcely spoken, and Ellen had cried" Stop! in mercy, stop! I... I will... I will! . . ." when the pistol was

dashed from his hand, and Grunter, furious with honest indignation, seized him.

"Shame on you to frighten a woman! If you cannot win a heart, Count, without these silly melodramatic pranks, why be content to be a single man.”

Grunter was not a little elated at his own conquest, and felt a real contempt for De Villeneuve's want of success; he, too, had stolen into the wood, was playing at hide and seek with Babie, and had hidden behind an ample hawthorn-bush, when De Villeneuve resolved to try on Ellen a manœuvre which had had a brilliant success in one of his own little pieces, at Le Théâtre des Variétés.

Grunter still held De Villeneuve in his powerful grasp, when Babie ran laughing up, unconscious of what had happened.

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Whoop, whoop!-Ah, here he is!— La! I must tidy me a wee bit, here are sae mony people coming. What are ye doing, Ebenezer, dear, to the French Count? Come and

hide, will ye, else a' the world will disturb

us."

But Grunter did not move; he still held the indignant and writhing Count, who was pale with rage, and gnashing his teeth in impotent wrath; and thus they stood when Mr. Lindsay approached, and with him Julian and the lost Annie!....

"I have found him! I have found him! my ain dear husband!" cried the Scotch lassie. "Ah! dearest, when you left me, I was sae lonesome I could nae bear it, sae I set out for Winterthur, where I kenned ye meant to gang, and on the way I met wi' Julian, who was going to Winterthur to see his father, and I tauld him a', and he mad inquiries at the hotels, and we found ye out where ye were. And noo ye will never leave your wee wife mair."

Annie threw herself into the unwilling arms of De Villeneuve; and all stood transfixed with wonder, when a piercing shriek was heard, and Zelie, who, from her dressing-room

at the hotel, had seen and recognized De Villeneuve, and hastily followed him, pale, her hair dishevelled, and her eyes on fire, rushed into the centre of the group.

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"What is this?" she cried; "have you ceived me, Alphonse? have you loved another? have I sold myself and my eternal soul for the vile sum that has enabled you to wed one who can never, never be to you what I have been ? Is it for this I have linked my fate with yon vile dotard's? is it for this I left the balmy home of innocence, and toiled and made myself vilely great, to make you rich and happy? Bear witness all, I am not his sister!... I am his victim!—speak! is that woman your wife, Alphonse ?"

"No; she is not my wife."

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Explain yourself," cried Julian: "you

must answer this to me."

"I fear no man," said De Villeneuve, proudly. "To gratify a silly fancy for a forward girl who would not let me rest, I

suffered the marriage ceremony to be performed by a Romish priest, aware, as of course the girl was too, that it could not be binding, she being a protestant."

"Ah!" cried Annie, "Father Eustace knew you then better than I did. But you are caught in your own snare, Alphonse; for a week before our unhappy marriage, I became a member of the church of Rome.

And now," she cried, rising almost into dignity as she spoke, "begone, unhappy woman! I am, before God and man, his wife; I am the Countess De Villeneuve."

At these words Zelie uttered a shriek, as if she had received a death-wound. The bright scarlet blood overflowed her pallid lips; Alphonse extended his arms, into which she sank. She had broken a blood-vessel in her lungs, and death seemed frightfully inevitable.

"Fiends, you have killed her!" shouted De Villeneuve, the "late remorse of love" awaking, as he saw the guilty but devoted one

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