d spot, and my father's
illness had interrupted these interviews. Altogether I cannot tell
if Jules discovered anything. A fearful circumstance rendered all
our precautions useless, and cut the knot of our secret connection,
to loose which voluntarily I felt I had no power. A wedding feast,
at a neighboring castle, assembled all the nobility and gentry, and
officers quartered near, together; my deep mourning was an excuse for
my absence. Jules, though he usually was happiest by my side, could
not resist the invitation, and your friend resolved to go, although he
was unwell; he feared to raise suspicion by remaining away, when I was
left at home. With great difficulty he contrived the first day to make
one at a splendid hunt, the second day he could not leave his bed.
A physician, who was in the house, pronounced his complaint to be
violent fever, and Jules, whose room joined that of the sick man,
offered him every little service and kindness which compassion and
good feeling prompted; and I cannot but praise him all the more for
it, as who can tell, perhaps, his suspicion might have taken the right
direction? On the morning of the second day--but let me glance quickly
at that terrible time, the memory of which can never pass from my
mind--a fit of apoplexy most unexpectedly, but gently, ended the
noblest life, and separated us forever! Now you know all. I inclose
the ring. I cannot write more. Farewell!"

The conclusion of the letter made a deep impression on Edward. His
dream rose up before his remembrance, the slight indisposition, the
sudden death, the fearful nursetender, all arranged themselves in
order before his mind, and an awful whole rose out of all these
reflections, a terrible suspicion which he tried to throw off. But
he could not do so, and when he met the captain and D'Effernay
in the evening, and the latter challenged his visitors to a game
of billiards, Edward glanced from time to time at his host in
a scrutinizing manner, and could not but feel that the restless
discontent which was visible in his countenance, and the unsteady
glare of his eyes, which shunned the fixed look of others, only fitted
too well into the shape of the dark thoughts which were crossing his
own mind. Late in the evening, after supper, they played whist in
Emily's boudoir. On the morrow, if the weather permitted, they were
to conclude their inspection of the surrounding property, and the next
day they were to visit the iron foun