ith caution and invoke the aid of others for
protection against him. This lovely creature, all passion, who had taken
upon herself to endure the contumely of society, and pain and grief for
his sake, knowing too that he had abandoned her, and would never make her
his wife before God and men--she indeed knew what it was to love; and he
who was so often inclined to despair of himself felt his heart uplifted
at the thought that he was so precious in her eyes, nay--he would own
it--so idolized.

And how sweet, how purely womanly she was! Those imploring eyes--which he
had grown quite sick of in Constantinople, for they were as full of
pathetic entreaty when she merely begged him to hold her cloak for her as
when she appealed to his heart of hearts not to leave her--that
entrancing play of glances which had first bewitched him, came to him
to-day as something new and worked the old spell.

In this moment of tender reunion he had promised her at any rate to
consider whether he could not release himself from the pledge by which he
was bound; but hardly had he spoken the words when the memory of Paula
revived in his mind, and an inward voice cried out to him that she was a
being of nobler mould than this yielding, weak woman, abject before
him--that she symbolized his upward struggle, Heliodora his perdition.

At length he was able to tear himself from her embrace; and at the first
step out of this intoxication into real life again he looked about like
one roused from sleep, feeling as though it were by some mocking sport of
the devil himself that Paula's room should have been the scene of this
meeting and of his weakness.

An enquiry from Heliodora, as to the fate of the little white dog that
she had given him as a remembrance, recalled to his mind that luckless
emerald which was to have been his return offering or antidoron. He
evasively replied that, remembering her love of rare gems, he had sent
her a remarkably fine stone about which he had a good deal to say; and
she gave such childlike and charming expression to her delight and
gratitude, and took such skilful advantage of his pleasure in her
clinging tenderness, to convince him of the necessity for remaining at
home, that he himself began to believe in it, and gave way. The more this
conclusion suited his own wishes the easier it became to find reasons for
it: old Rufinus really did not need him; and if he--Orion--had cause to
be ashamed of his vacillation, on the ot