out his life to his last hour in
peace; not if Felix--well; I need to play the man; Felix is a formidable
antagonist to meet, alone, in a spot of such rancorous memories, at an
hour when spirits--if there be spirits--haunt the precincts of the tomb.

* * * * *

ENTRY XI.

I should not have known Felix had I met him in the street. How much of a
stranger he appeared, then, in the faint moonlight which poured upon
that shaded spot! His very voice seemed altered, and in his manner I
remarked a hesitation I had not supposed him capable of showing under
any circumstances. Nor were his words such as I expected. The questions
I dreaded most he did not ask. The recriminations I looked for he did
not utter. He only told me coldly that my courtship must be shortened;
that the end for which we were both prepared must be hastened, and gave
me two weeks in which to bring matters to a climax. Then he turned to
Evelyn's grave, and bending down, tried to read her name on the mossy
stone. He was so long in doing this that I leaned down beside him and
laid my hand on his shoulder. He was trembling, and his body was as cold
as the stone he threw himself against. Was it the memory of her whom
that stone covered which had aroused this emotion? If so, it was but
natural. To all appearance he has never in all his life loved any one as
he did this unhappy sister; and struck with a respect for the grief
which has outlived many a man's lifetime, I was shrinking back when he
caught my hand, and with a convulsive strain, contrasting strongly with
his tone, which was strangely measured, he cried, "Do not forget the
end! Do not forget John Poindexter! his sin, his indifference to my
father's grief; the accumulated sufferings of years which made Amos
Cadwalader a hermit amongst men. I have seen the girl; she has
changed--women do change at her age--and some men, I do not say you, but
some men might think her beautiful. But beauty, if she has it, must not
blind your eyes, which are fixed upon another goal. Overlook it;
overlook her--you have done so, have you not? Pale beauties cannot move
one who has sat at the feet of the most dazzling of Parisian women. Keep
your eyes on John Poindexter, the debt he owes us, and the suffering we
have promised him. That she is sweet, gentle, different from all we
thought her, only makes the chances of reaching his heart the greater.
The worthier she may be of affections not indigenous