quaintances
in vain howled for admission at the outer wall. For the rest, her ideal
of social happiness was a series of perfectly ordered entertainments,
at each of which there should be precisely the same guests, the same
topics, the same supper, and the same ennui.

XI. DESCENSUS AVERNI.

MALBONE stood one morning on the pier behind the house. A two days'
fog was dispersing. The southwest breeze rippled the deep blue water;
sailboats, blue, red, and green, were darting about like white-winged
butterflies; sloops passed and repassed, cutting the air with the white
and slender points of their gaff-topsails. The liberated sunbeams spread
and penetrated everywhere, and even came up to play (reflected from
the water) beneath the shadowy, overhanging counters of dark vessels.
Beyond, the atmosphere was still busy in rolling away its vapors,
brushing the last gray fringes from the low hills, and leaving over them
only the thinnest aerial veil. Farther down the bay, the pale tower
of the crumbling fort was now shrouded, now revealed, then hung with
floating lines of vapor as with banners.

Hope came down on the pier to Malbone, who was looking at the boats.
He saw with surprise that her calm brow was a little clouded, her lips
compressed, and her eyes full of tears.

"Philip," she said, abruptly, "do you love me?"

"Do you doubt it?" said he, smiling, a little uneasily.

Fixing her eyes upon him, she said, more seriously: "There is a more
important question, Philip. Tell me truly, do you care about Emilia?"

He started at the words, and looked eagerly in her face for an
explanation. Her expression only showed the most anxious solicitude.

For one moment the wild impulse came up in his mind to put an entire
trust in this truthful woman, and tell her all. Then the habit of
concealment came back to him, the dull hopelessness of a divided duty,
and the impossibility of explanations. How could he justify himself to
her when he did not really know himself? So he merely said, "Yes."

"She is your sister," he added, in an explanatory tone, after a pause;
and despised himself for the subterfuge. It is amazing how long a man
may be false in action before he ceases to shrink from being false in
words.

"Philip," said the unsuspecting Hope, "I knew that you cared about her.
I have seen you look at her with so much affection; and then again I
have seen you look cold and almost stern. She notices it, I am sure she
does, t