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felicity. To-day, on the contrary, young Carre, his cheek pale, his lip compressed, and his eyes flashing with indignation and sorrow, strode first into the room. With a bow of the deepest, but most mournful respect to Lady Edith, he then firmly grasped the back of a chair and glanced almost fiercely round at Bessie, who followed faltering in her step, and as if crouching into nothing with misery. She looked beautiful beyond expression, but it seemed only the beauty of death; for the joyous light that used to dance in her splendid eyes was quenched, the colour that once bloomed in her brilliant cheek was fled, and the whole of her figure, expression and attitude, seemed like that of one doomed to martyrdom. Joan of Arc herself could not have looked more rapt in dismal enthusiasm at the hour of death than Bessie McRonald did now, while she stood with an expression of rigid fixedness in mind as well as in body before Lady Edith."

"Robert Carre!" exclaimed Lady Edith, in a low tone of sorrowful amazement and very anxious suspense; "how is this? What has happened between you? Tell me all!"

"None can explain anything but herself," replied Robert, turning slowly round wih a look of stern manly grief, but avoiding even a momentary glance at Bessie, who had covered her face with her hands, and shook as in the coldest blast of winter. "None know the truth except

her, and it is to find out the whole truth that I have brought my No! not my Bessie,no longer mine! But I wish at least to have all explained. Tell me, Bessie! what has turned your mind upside down? only tell me the real reason why we are parted-tell me why my faithful affectionmy devoted love for many long years, is to be crushed; why every hope of home and happiness-oh Bessie! Is it you that could say this! you that could think of such a thing! All, all is ended for ever !

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Young Carre, regardless now of Lady Edith's presence, and of all but his own overwhelming grief, sunk on the chair, covered his face with his hands in all the agony of a strong man overwhelmed with sudden calamity, and groaned aloud in a passionate agony of sorrow. Long and vehemently he struggled to master his emotion, till at length he started up evidently ashamed of it, as well as angry at himself, saying in accents broken to fragments with agitation, "Ask her, Madam! ask Bessie to tell all! anything but this dreary silence. Have I offended her? Does she no longer love me? Am I supplanted? Can she ever find another who has loved her from infancy as I have done and still do? Through every moment of conscious existence I have loved her, and believed that in time and eternity we should be one."

There was a pause of several minutes, during which a deep convulsive sob from Bessie was the

only sound to be heard, while her pale lips became compressed and her small hands were firmly clenched together. The benevolent eye of Lady Edith was fixed with a look of penetrating sorrow upon the unhappy girl, who still kept her trembling hands riveted over her convulsed and pallid face.

"Here, Madam," continued Robert, in a low tone of forced composure; "here is the letter I received from Bessie some hours ago. It has filled me with a most withering amazement, and I never rested till I had tracked her steps to this house,-to her uncle's room.”

He opened up a letter in such indignant haste as to tear it almost in two. With a shaking hand he then almost dashed it down on the table before Lady Edith, and walked hastily up and down the room with rapid strides, till she had read it attentively through. Bessie, meanwhile, with her trembling hands clasped together, and the countenance of a corpse, sat immoveably cowering on a chair which lady Edith had at first pointed out to her. Not an eye-lid stirred, but a deep gasp of agitation was all the sign of life she gave.

Lady Edith deliberately examined the letter, sealed, she could not but observe, with a Latin motto and a crest borne by the Ambrose family— the globe surmounted by a tiara, with which Father Eustace had formerly sealed his notes to Sir Evan.

Twice Lady Edith read over this letter, and each time she felt an increasingly sorrowful perplexity what to think and what to do. She then looked round with mournful regret at the scene of devastating misery before her, and sighed heavily over the sudden change. Following, as usual, the strong impulse of her own kind heart and clear understanding, Lady Edith then drew her chair close beside Bessie, and taking her by the hand, said in accents of heartfelt kindness, but at the same time of most earnest remonstrance, 66 Surely, Bessie, it must require some stronger reason than I can imagine, to make you give up the happy prospect of becoming Robert Carre's much-loved wife! What can have changed you so sadly since that joyous day when I hoped that you had, with the blessing of God, attained the certainty of a wellordered home in which to pass many well-spent years together? Why do you now break the heart of your faithful and attached Robert? Do you prefer another?"

never

"No! no! impossible! I never mean to marry never!" exclaimed Bessie, her voice rising to a tone of high enthusiasm, and a deep stain of scarlet mounting to her hitherto pallid cheek, "Robert will one day find another wife. For me there shall never be any husband on earth! never!"

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Bessie," said Lady Edith, looking with earnest

sadness at the agitated girl, "it is early in life to know your own mind so unalterably. In a few years you may probably change this resolution, and then

"Never!" replied Bessie, with mournful firmness, "I shall soon be placed beyond the reach of change, and I ought not to regret the sacrifice as I do."

"You are not dying, Bessie, and nothing short of death can place a young creature like you so certainly beyond the reach of a thousand vicissitudes in the hopes and fears, the wishes and intentions of life."

"I am bound for the present by a solemn oath to reveal nothing," replied Bessie, in a tone far different from its naturally melodious cheerfulness, "time will tell all! Robert need only look in my miserable, altered face, to see what it cost me to give him up. Friends, who must for the present be nameless, have told me what I owe to duty; but it is well that the blue sky overhead, and the sun shining brightly above, remind me now, in this hour of temptation and trial, that there is a world for which all on earth must be sacrificed-must be crushed like a worm beneath my feet."

"Bessie's voice had sunk away to the lowest whisper, while Robert listened as if life or death depended on every syllable she uttered. He now advanced towards Lady Edith, the expression of his features almost fierce with agitation, and said

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