I will never believe it.' "'No,' she said, 'I did not say he did.

I said he knew _me_; so well, I think, judging from this,'-- clasping his letter with the same curious pressure I had before noticed,--'that you could scarcely enlighten him farther.

He knows my heart, and soul, and brain,--as I said, he knows _me_.' "'O, yes,' I answered,--or rather sneered, for I was uncontrollably indignant through all this,--'if you mean _that_, very likely.

I am not talking lovers' metaphysics, but practical common-sense.

He does not know the one thing at present essential for him to know; and he will abandon you, spurn you,--his love turned to scorn, his passion to contempt,--when he reads what I shall write him if you refuse to do what I demand!' "I expected to see her cower before me.