"Your friend," she responded "was noble in the highest sense of the word, the sacrifice he made in giving his hand to one of humble birth proved that his heart was in the right place; of his wife I offer no opinion, except to say, that the whole of his bearing towards her, making allowances for the follies attendant upon youth, ought to have been better requited. His conduct in unburthening his soul to one he thought interested in him, was high minded and honourable, and the object of that interest must indeed have been made of marble, if she did not fully appreciate the confidence he placed in her."

A pause ensued, during which Ada's expression of countenance would have been a study for an artist; love, enthusiasm, anxiety, were depicted in it.

"And could you?" I eagerly asked, "forgive a man who had thus acted towards you,” Ada's brow contracted, and fearing I had gone too far, I added, “assuming it possible you could be placed in such a situation."

"Not only would I have forgiven him, but I

would have taken him to my heart of hearts as a friend; he practised no deceit, he vowed no false protestations, and atoned the error, if fault there was, by entrusting her with a secret he had kept from his family and friends; those who have never had their feelings put to a test, may censure her for encouraging such a passion, hopeless as it proved to be, but remember the words of your favourite poet,

"Why did she love him? curious fool,—be still— Is human love, the growth of human will?"

"What a generous nature is yours," I responded, "so merciful to your sex, so forgiving-"

"And selfish, too,” she replied, “for I should have felt that I had nought to do with an attachment formed before I had known him, and it would have been a satisfaction-an unjustifiable one-to think that he could not, after that acquaintance, have given his hand to another."

"Let me no longer act a false part to one who merits openness and candour," I passion

ately exclaimed, "I am the hero of my own romance, I am a wifeless husband.”

For some moments, Ada preserved a profound silence, during which the convulsive heaving of her breast proved too well that her feelings were deeply touched, but recovering her selfpossession, she with a forced smile, remarked:

"I am not your confessor, Mr. Pembroke: if I were, I should only make you undergo a slight penance for a fault you have done all in your power to expiate; and now we must find Emmeline, or she will think us lost."

Fortunately, at this instant we were joined by Miss Castleton, and the conversation took another turn.

Would that I could throw a veil over my conduct for the three months that followed this explanation; suffice it to say, I gave myself up to an unhallowed passion, and although Ada preserved her purity, she felt the deepest remorse, the most poignant grief at the labyrinth love had unconsciously led her into. Upon one occasion, as will presently appear, she had been called from Cheltenham to visit an aunt in

Buckinghamshire, when I, unknown to her, waylaid the carriage on the road, and having bribed the servant, urged Ada to elope. Happily for both, a sudden illness attacked the wavering girl, and she was saved from the public disgrace attendant upon such a step.

The unremitting kindness of the landlady, who accompanied the sufferer back to Cheltenham, and the watchful solicitude of a mother and sister, tended greatly to restore the health of the invalid, but it was weeks before she was sufficiently recovered to leave her room. But I must not linger over this sad portion of my story, An interval of nearly two years had elapsed, when I received the following:

"You will be surprised, Arthur, to hear from one whose very name has most likely escaped your memory. I write not with the intention of asking anything from your love, it would be folly to expect that that which burns vividly, though sorrowfully, in my bosom, still animates yours. It is not in the nature of man to love on without hope; neither is it his nature to love

the absent, when the present spreads its allurements before him. It is not, therefore, with a view to rekindle that which is dead that I write, but simply to satisfy the cravings of a heart, that in spite of time, distance, and hopelessness, is wholly yours.

"I have a request to make of you, Arthur. Unless your kind nature is strangely altered, you will not refuse it. Write to my mother. It is the only medium through which I can hear of your welfare. By the love you once vowed to me, I conjure you to do this. If you knew the restless desire, the feverish anxiety I feel to hear of you, you would not hesitate.

"Arthur, my own and only love; memory is busy within me as I write. The past year, with its suffering and apathy, is blotted out of the book of life, and I am still with thee, still thine own.

"Alas! the delirium is but momentary. The tide of time has swept away the treasure, and left only a wreck. I shall return home in the summer, probably in July. I confide in your caution to afford no clue to my having

VOL. III.

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