at the lovely but wasted hand she
still held out to him, and glanced, too, at Arthur Wardlaw's letter, held
slightly by the beloved fingers.

He said nothing, and, when she looked round, again, he was pale and
trembling. The revelation was so sudden.

"Pray be calm, sir," said she. "We need speak of this no more. But now, I
think, you will not be surprised that I come to you for religious advice
and consolation, short as our acquaintance is."

"I am in no condition to give them," said Hazel, in great agitation. "I
can think of nothing but how to save you. May Heaven help me, and give me
wisdom for that."

"This is idle," said Helen Rolleston, gently but firmly. "I have had the
best advice for months, and I get worse; and, Mr. Hazel, I shall never be
better. So aid me to bow to the will of Heaven. Sir, I do not repine at
leaving the world; but it does grieve me to think how my departure will
affect those whose happiness is very, very dear to me."

She then looked at the letter, blushed, and hesitated a moment; but ended
by giving it to him whom she had applied to as her religious adviser.

"Oblige me by reading that. And, when you have, I think you will grant me
a favor I wish to ask you. Poor fellow! so full of hopes that I am doomed
to disappoint."

She rose to hide her emotion, and left Arthur Wardlaw's letter in the
hands of him who loved her, if possible, more devotedly than Arthur
Wardlaw did; and she walked the deck pensively, little dreaming how
strange a thing she had done.

As for Hazel, he was in a situation poignant with agony; only the heavy
blow that had just fallen had stunned and benumbed him. He felt a natural
repugnance to read this letter. But she had given him no choice. He read
it. In reading it he felt a mortal sickness come over him, but he
persevered; he read it carefully to the end, and he was examining the
signature keenly, when Miss Rolleston rejoined him, and, taking the
letter from him, placed it in her bosom before his eyes.

"He loves me; does he not?" said she wistfully.

Hazel looked half stupidly in her face for a moment; then, with a candor
which was part of his character, replied, doggedly, "Yes, the man who
wrote that letter loves you."

"Then you can pity him, and I may venture to ask you the favor to-- It
will be a bitter grief and disappointment to him. Will you break it to
him as gently as you can; will you say that his Helen-- Will you tell him
what I have told you?