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4 A DREADFUL TEMPTATION.
Pride and passion spoke in every curve of her mobile,
spirited face. a
The lace hangings at the entrance parted noisclessly, and
a man stepped lightly across the threshold.
Not a sound announced his presence, yet she looked up
instantly, as if by some subtle inner sense she divined that
he was there.
“Ah!” she breathed, in a hissing tone of hate and scorn.
A mocking smile curled the man’s lip as he bowed before
her.
‘‘Ah! ma tante,” he said, in a cool tone of scorn, ‘‘per-
mit me to offer my congratulations.” .
Some emotion too great for utterance seemed to over.
power her, so that she struggled vainly for speech a mo-
ment, while he stood silent, with folded arms, looking down
at her from his haughty height with a look of veiled hatred
in his dark-blue eyes. .
They were deadly foes, this man and woman, yet nature
had formed them as if for the perfect complement of each
other. ‘
He was tall, strong and fair, with the proud beauty and.
commanding air we fancy in the Grecian gods of old.
She was petite, dark, brilliant asarose, and passionate as
the tropical blood of the gcouth could make her. Dt
Breaking down the bars of her great emotion at last, she
laughed aloud—a cool, insolent, incredulous laugh that
made the hot blood bound faster through his veins, anda
flush creep over his face.
‘*You callme aunt,” she said; ‘Sha! ha!”
‘“Yes, madam, you bear that relationship to me since
your marriage with my uncle,” he answered, with a formal
bow.
‘You expect to find me a nost loving relative, no doubt?”
she said, with exasperating coolness.
‘*T hope to do so, at least,” he said, with calm frankness,
**T cannot afford to quarrel with my uncle. I shall hope
‘to keep on good terms with his wife.”
‘* Ah! you don’t wish to quarrel with your bread and but-
ter,” she said ina tone of coolcontempt. ‘‘ Well, mon ami,
what do you suppose I married your uncle for?” . .
‘* The world says that you married him for his money,”
said the handsome young man, coolly. on
‘‘ Yes, that is what the world says,” she answered, with
flashing eyes, and cresting her graceful head as haughtily
asa young stag. ‘‘ But you, Howard Templeton, you know
better than that.”
‘‘ Pardon me, how should I know better?” he rejoined,
watching her keenly, as if it gave him a certain pleasure |
to irritate her. ‘‘ The money seems to me the only reason-