`Ah! don't taunt me, madam. This woman is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be. If Satan had not tempted me with that face of yours, and those cursed coquetries, I should have married her. I never had another thought till you came in my way. Would to God that I had; but it is all too late! I deserve to live in torment for this!' He turned to Fanny then. `But never mind, darling,' he said; `in the sight of Heaven you are my very, very wife!'

At these words arose from Bathsheba's lips a long, low cry of measureless despair and indignation, such a wail of anguish as had never before been heard within those old-inhabited walls. It was the Tetelestou of her union with Troy.

`If she's - that, - what - am I?' she added, as a continuation of the same cry, and sobbing pitifully; and the rarity with her of such abandonment only made the condition more dire.

`You are nothing to me - nothing,' said Troy heartlessly. `A ceremony before a priest doesn't make a marriage. I am not morally yours.

A vehement impulse to flee from him, to run from this place, hide, and escape his words at any price, not stopping short of death itself, mastered Bathsheba now. She waited not an instant, but turned to the door and ran out.


  By PanEris using Melati.

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