"Oh! I deserve it all--I deserve you should despise me!" he exclaimed in a voice of agony; "but I love you--I love you! You, and you alone, hold my life and my future in your hands! Forgive me, Mollie--let me try to win back your respect. I swear that no one shall lead a more exemplary life--no one shall be more worthy of your confidence--your love, than I, if you will but give me a chance. See! I kneel--I beg----"
"Stop!" cried Mollie authoritatively, as she put out one hand to stay him, "never do that, for no true woman would ever wish a man to humiliate himself. And now let me say," she continued even more impressively, "you must never speak like this to me again, for--I am already the promised wife of another."
At Mollie's words Philip sprang erect, a sudden rage possessing him.
"You engaged!" he faltered in a scarcely audible voice. He had only rejoined his mother in Washington a few days previous, and, as yet, had not heard of the formal announcement of Mollie's engagement to Clifford. He had been secretly enraged during the latter part of the previous winter because of the young man's attentions to her, and he had feared that they might result in their union; but now that the blow had fallen, he found that he was entirely unprepared for it, and was almost beside himself with mingled hate and jealousy.
It did not once occur to him that he himself was playing the part of a treacherous villain, for he was still pledged to Gertrude Athol. But he would not have hesitated an instant to throw her over if he could have won Mollie and her fortune.
"You engaged!" he repeated, his clouded eyes searching the fair face before him.
Mollie flushed. She had felt almost sure he must have known the fact, and she was considerably embarrassed to be obliged to explain matters to him. But she was determined to make him understand, once for all, that their old-time friendship could never be renewed, and that he must cease persecuting her with avowals of love.
"Yes," she quietly returned, but with downcast eyes, and a tender inflection unconsciously creeping into her tones, "I am going to marry Mr. Faxon the 25th of January."
The ax had fallen! The man whom he had hated for years had won the prize which he coveted. He could have borne it better if she had named some stranger, but to be told that his old enemy, who, in spite of every adverse circumstance, had gone straight to the front, distancing him in college; who had proved himself a hero over and over; to whom he owed the life of his young sister; against whom he had once lifted a murderous hand, and who was now rapidly rising, both in the social and political world. Oh! it was too much; it was crushing, maddening!