“Nothing let it be,” said Edith, over whose mind, prone to agitation and terror, it was evident the fierce and domineering temper of the individual could exercise an irresistible control, and who, though yet striving to resist, was visibly sinking before his stern looks and menacing words;—­“let it be nothing!  Kill me, if you will, as you have already killed my cousin.  Oh! mockery of passion, of humanity, of decency, to speak to me thus;—­to me, the relative, the more than sister of him you have so basely and cruelly murdered!”

“I have murdered no one,” said Braxley, with stony composure:  “and if you will but listen patiently, you will find I am stained by no crime save that of loving a woman who forces me to woo her like a master, rather than a slave.  Your cousin is living and in safety.”

“It is false,” cried Edith, wringing her hands; “with my own eyes I saw him fall, and fall covered with blood!”

“And from that moment you saw nothing more,” rejoined Braxley.  “The blood came from the veins of others; he was carried away alive, and almost unhurt.  He is a captive,—­a captive like yourself.  And why?  Shall I remind my fair Edith how much of her hostility and scorn I owed to her hot and foolish kinsman? how he persuaded her the love she so naturally bore so near a relative was reason enough to reject the affection of a suitor? how impossible she should listen to the dictates of her own heart, or the calls of her interest, while misled by a counsellor so indiscreet, and yet so trusted?  Before that unlucky young man stepped between me and my love, Edith Forrester could listen,—­ay, and could smile.  Nay, deny it if you will; but hearken.  Your cousin is safe; rely upon that; but, rely, also, he will never again see the home of his birth, or the kinswoman whose fortunes he has so opposed, until she is the wife of the man he misjudges and hates.  He is removed from my path:  it was necessary to my hopes.  His life is, at all events, safe; his deliverance rests with his kinswoman.  When she has plighted her troth, and surely she will plight it—­”

“Never! never!” cried Edith, starting up, her indignation for a moment getting the better of her fears:  “with one so false and treacherous, so unprincipled and ungrateful, so base and revengeful,—­with such a man, with such a villain, never! no, never!”

“I am a villain indeed, Edith,” said Braxley, but with exemplary coolness; “all men are so.  Good and evil are sown together in our natures, and each has its season and its harvest.  In this breast, as in the breast of the worst and the noblest, Nature set, at birth, an angel and a devil, either to be the governor of my actions, as either should be best encouraged.  If the devil be now at work, and have been for months, it was because your scorn called him from his slumbers.  Before that time Edith, I was under the domination of my angel; who then called, or who deemed me, a villain?