"Well done?" said Diabolus.

"That was a clever hit!" chimed in his assistant, complacently,

after he had put the sealed envelope into his portfolio for

safe-keeping, and burned the torn one he had removed. "Nobody but an

idiot or a madman would persist in following a girl up after such a

quietus."

He replied to Frederic's note to himself shortly and with disdain,

using the third person throughout, and informing Mr. Chilton with

unmistakable distinctness that Miss Aylett had offered no opposition

whatever to her brother's will in this unfortunate affair. So far as

he--Mr. Aylett--could judge, her views coincided exactly with his

own. Mr. Chilton's letters and presents should be returned to him at

an early day, and thus should be finished the closing chapter of a

volume which ought never to have been begun.

All this done to his mind, he set the door of his room ajar, and

watched for Mabel's passage to hers.

He had not to wait long. The young ladies had fallen into habits of

early retiring of late--a marked change from their olden fashion of

singing and talking out the midnight hour. Himself unseen, Mr.

Aylett scrutinized the two mounting the stairs side by side--Rosa's

dark, mobile face, arch with smiles, while she chattered over a bit

of country gossip she had heard that afternoon from a visitor, and

the weary calm of Mabel's visage, the drooping eyelids, and, when

appealed to directly by her volatile comrade, the measured, not

melancholy cadence of her answer, The girl had had a sore fight, and

won a Pyrrhian victory. She was not vanquished, but she was worsted.

Some men, upon appreciating what this meant, and how her grief had

been wrought, would have had direful visitings of conscience,

surrendered themselves to the mastery of doubts as to the

righteousness and humanity of stringent action such as he had just

consummated. He was not unmoved. He really loved his only sister, as

proud, selfish men love those of their own lineage who have never

disputed their supremacy, and derogated from their importance. He

said something under his breath before he called her, but the curse

was not upon himself.

"The low-bred hound!" he muttered. "This is his doing!"

Mabel halted at the stair-head, the blood suddenly and utterly

forsaking her cheeks when he spoke her name, although his address

was purposely kind, and, he thought, inviting.

"Can you spare me a moment?" he continued, smilingly, to win her

advance. "I will not detain you long. I know you are agonizing to

have your talk out, Miss Rosa."




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