3S8
WYLDER'S HAJVJ}.
"Are you ill, Dorkie, darling?" said the apparition in
accents of tenderness. '' Yes, you are ill."
And he hastily threw open the window, close to which
they were sitting, and she quickly revived in the cooling
air.
"You are better, darling; thank heaven, you are bet-
ter.'
"Yes — yes — a great deal better; it is passing away."
Her color was returning, and with a shivering sigh,
she said —
"Oh! Stanley, you must speak truth; I am your
wife. Do they know anything very bad — are you in
their power?"
"Why, my dearest, what on earth could put such a wild
fancy in your head?" said Lake, with a strange laugh,
and, as she fancied, growing still paler. "Do you sup-
pose I am a highwayman in disguise, or a murderer, like
— what's his name — Eugene Aram. I must have ex-
pressed myself very ill, if I suggested anything so tragical.
I protest before Heaven, my darling, there is not one
word or act of mine I need fear to submit to any court of
justice or of honor on earth."
He took her hand, and kissed it affectionately, and still
fondling it gently between his, he resumed —
"I don't mean to say, of course, that I have always
been better than other young fellows; I've been foolish,
and wild, and — and — I've done wrong things, occasion-
ally — as all young men will; but for high crimes and
misdemeanors, or for melodramatic situations, I never had
the slightest taste. There's no man on earth who can
tell anything of me, or put me under any sort of pressure,
thank Heaven; and simply because I have never in the
course of my life done a single act unworthy of a gentle-
man, or in the most trifling way compromised myself. I