the gloom of night, it was not to be distinguished. Clinton had to go back nearly two miles to get a landing, but the lake was in so quiescent a state, that he would have felt perfectly secure had the distance been twenty miles. He rather lingered on the water than otherwise, enjoying the stillness that pervaded all the landscape, together with the solemn darkness of midnight that imparted to it a visionary character. He lived over again the unlooked for events of the past day, and speculated upon the probable change in his destiny of which they might be productive. Having landed, he drew the slight canoe on the beach, and walked to the hut of the civilised Indian to whom it belonged. He had received from the latter the dollars which he had left with him as a security for his return with the canoe, and was going leisurely toward Toronto, when a figure in military attire rushed by him, bareheaded, and Clinton, astonished, recognised Colonel Cleveland, whom he presently observed stalking with frantic gestures, under the precipice of the cliffs.

CHAPTER XIV.

"Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me,

Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me."-Burns

COLONEL Cleveland had been spending the evening in the fort at the mouth of the harbour, with a party of officers, some of them belonging to the regiment whose head-quarters are settled here, and the rest being military gentlemen on half-pay, who had been invited to dinner from their elegant cottages at the borders of the town. He left the table about eleven o'clock, having previously sent his servant forward to the Governor's residence with a number of letters and despatches, which he had undertaken to convey to the different forts on the frontiers of Niagara, Erie, and Huron. He was so much disordered by the large quantity of wine he had taken as to feel more than usually irritable, but no unsteadiness was communicated to his walk or to his voice. He had to traverse that long and narrow strip of land which has been before described as enclosing the expansive basin of the harbour in a circular form. As he went along he occasionally stopped, and his eye, lustreless and bloodshot with long excess, looked vacantly on the various objects in sight, resting more fixedly on the

shipping and the piers, whilst he was striving to connect together some angry thoughts that were flitting in dis

order about his brain.

"Where could that fool Williams have heard that Lady Cleveland wished to separate from me?" said he at last, speaking aloud and hiccupping. "Where the devil could he have heard it? Separate from me! No, by she shall never do that! Never! no, by

I will pistol myself if she leaves me! I know she detests me-but she shall stay with me!-yes, by! Perhaps I am a horrid wretch-perhaps I am; but whatever I may be, stay with me she shall!"

He moved on with a quicker tread until the town was just before him: all the scene was silent and dark. He stopped again, and exclaimed

"There is a hell within me! I hate to go into Hester's presence! Her looks are arrows-and every word she speaks to me is like a sharp sword that cuts my heart to the core! But she shall never—never—separate from me! She may abhor me as she will-she may as often as she likes reproach me with that scorn which she knows stings me so much-but by she shall

never go from my side!"

He now went forwards into the spacious main street of Toronto, more than once grasping the hilt of his sword, and muttering to himself

"What right had Williams to make use of her name at all? If I was going to stay another day in this place I would make him publicly ask my pardon for his — boldness. There was every one at table took up the matter. On my soul,' said Cornet Brown, I shall Sorry for you, Cleveland, if you lose that fine

be

woman.'

And so shall I-and I,' said Dickens and Thompson. And I had completely to run the gauntlet there. I was made a butt for every one's wit and raillery. By, Williams should pay dearly for it if I was going to stay here!"

In this mood the Colonel entered the Governor's house. "His Excellency, with the Earl, and the ladies, sir, are in the small drawing-room," said the servant who admitted him. "You are requested to go to them."

"What! has not Lady Cleveland retired yet?" exclaimed the Colonel.

"No, sir," replied the servant; "Lady Cleveland is with the Earl, and Governor, and my lady; they have been waiting up for you, sir."

"Do you know whether my servants have taken all our luggage down to the packet, and whether they have seen the boxes packed away safely ?”

"All is done as you directed, I am quite certain," replied the man.

Very well; tell my valet to wait for me in my dressing room."

The Colonel entered the small elegant room in which his friends sat, while they were in the midst of an important consultation, which his appearance instantly checked.

"I have disturbed your conversation," said he, throwing himself down on a couch; "pray, if it be not of a very private nature, proceed with it.”

"It concerns you most particularly," said the stately Earl, with a look of much unhappiness.

"Ah, I suspected so, for I heard my name pronounced by you as I entered.”

"You did," said the Earl, with slow and painful utterance. "I was just observing, that when I bestowed on you the hand of Lady Hester, my eldest daughter, the hope and pride of my ancient family, I little thought ever to have seen the hour in which I should be called upon to demand your separation from her."

"Demand my separation from her!" repeated the Colonel, starting up from the recumbent posture he had taken. "What the do you mean?"

The Earl heard the coarse expression used by his son-in-law with a shrinking movement, and took the hand of his daughter into his own.

"I beg," said he to the Colonel, in a very subdued voice, "that you will allow this unpleasant, but I now perceive most necessary change in our family arrangements, to be concluded without discord, without heat, which you must be aware can be productive of no good whatever. I assure you, Colonel, my daughter is determined henceforth to live apart from you-and I am no less determined to carry her wishes into effect.” "And by I am determined too," exclaimed the Colonel, springing from the couch, and advancing to the table, on which he struck his clenched hand, "Hester shall not leave me while there is breath in my body! No, by! She is my wife! and never shall she live under the protection of any man but her husband while I exist-no-not even under her father's!"

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"Protection!" echoed the earl, with a loud and meaning sigh. Indeed, Colonel, my daughter has never known the protection of a husband. You have grossly neglected her-you have not protected her! This is my most serious complaint; and I tell you