he had deemed himself most
secure of its rewards--when he most needed its consolations? Hitherto,
in that love he had lived in the future--he had silenced the voice of the
turbulent human passion by the whisper of the patient angel, "A little
while yet, and thy bride sits beside thy throne!" Now what was that
future! how joyless! how desolate! The splendour vanished from
Ambition--the glow from the face of Fame--the sense of Duty remained
alone to counteract the pleadings of Affection; but Duty, no longer
dressed in all the gorgeous colourings it took before from glory and
power--Duty stern, and harsh, and terrible, as the iron frown of a
Grecian Destiny.

And thus, front to front with that Duty, he sate alone one evening, while
his lips murmured, "Oh fatal voyage, oh lying truth in the hell-born
prophecy! this, then, this was the wife my league with the Norman was to
win to my arms!" In the streets below were heard the tramp of busy feet
hurrying homeward, and the confused uproar of joyous wassail from the
various resorts of entertainment crowded by careless revellers. And the
tread of steps mounted the stairs without his door, and there
paused;--and there was the murmur of two voices without; one the clear
voice of Gurth,--one softer and more troubled. The Earl lifted his head
from his bosom, and his heart beat quick at the faint and scarce heard
sound of that last voice. The door opened gently, gently: a form
entered, and halted on the shadow of the threshold; the door closed again
by a hand from without. The Earl rose to his feet, tremulously, and the
next moment Edith was at his knees; her hood thrown back, her face
upturned to his, bright with unfaded beauty, serene with the grandeur of
self-martyrdom.

"O Harold!" she exclaimed, "dost thou remember that in the old time I
said, 'Edith had loved thee less, if thou hadst not loved England more
than Edith?' Recall, recall those words. And deemest thou now that I,
who have gazed for years into thy clear soul, and learned there to sun my
woman's heart in the light of all glories native to noblest man, deemest
thou, O Harold, that I am weaker now than then, when I scarce knew what
England and glory were?"

"Edith, Edith, what wouldst thou say?--What knowest thou?--Who hath told
thee?--What led thee hither, to take part against thyself?"

"It matters not who told me; I know all. What led me? Mine own soul,
and mine own love!" Springing to her feet and cla