A wild scream, that seemed to split the heart from whence it arose, broke from the lips of Miriam; springing forward, she grasped the wrist of Alice, and with her wild eyes starting, straining from their sockets, gazed into he face, crying: 

“Tell me! tell me! that you have jested! tell me that you have lied?  Speak! speak!”

“I told you the Lord’s blessed truth, and Oily knows it.  But Miriam, for goodness sake don’t look that way—­you scare me almost to death!  And, whatever you do, never let anybody know that I told you this; because, if you did, Olly would be very much grieved at me; for he confided it to me as a dead secret, and bound me up to secrecy, too; but I thought as it concerned you so much, it would be no harm to tell you, if you would not tell it again; and so when I was promising, I made a mental reservation in favor of yourself.  And so I have told you; and now you mustn’t betray me, Miriam.”

“It is false! all that you have told me is false! say that It is false! tell me so! speak! speak!” cried Miriam, wildly.

“It is not false—­it is true as Gospel, every word of it—­nor is it any mistake.  Because Olly saw the whole thing, and told me all about it.  The way of it was, that Olly overheard them in the Congressional Library arranging the marriage—­the gentleman was going to depart for Europe, and wished to secure the lady’s hand before he went—­and at the same time, for some reason or other, he wished the marriage to be kept secret.  Olly owns that it was none of his business, but that curiosity got the upper hand of him, so he listened, and he heard them call each other ‘Thurston’ and ’Marian’—­and when they left the library, he followed them—­and so, unseen, he witnessed the private marriage ceremony, at which they still answered to the names of ‘Thurston’ and ‘Marian.’  He did not hear their surnames.  He never saw the bride again; and he never saw the bridegroom until he saw Mr. Willcoxen at our wedding.  The moment Olly saw him he knew that he had seen him before, but could not call to mind when or where; and the oftener he looked at him, the more convinced he became that he had seen him first under some very singular circumstances.  And when at last lie heard his first name called ‘Thurston,’ the whole truth flashed on him at once.  He remembered everything connected with the mysterious marriage.  I wonder what Mr. Willcoxen has done with his Marian? or whether she died or whether she lives? or where he hides her?  Well, some men are a mystery—­don’t you think so, Miriam?”

But only deep and shuddering groans, upheaving from the poor girl’s bosom, answered her.

“Miriam!  Oh, don’t go on so! what do you mean?  Indeed you alarm me! oh, don’t take it so to heart! indeed, I wouldn’t, if I were you!  I should think it the funniest kind of fun?  Miriam, I say!”

She answered not—­she had sunk down on the floor, utterly crushed by the weight of misery that had fallen upon her.