ed over the river, but the reflection of the lamp-lights on its
waves was more visible than that of the stars. The beams showed the
darkness of the strong current; and the craft that lay eastward on
the tide, with sail-less spectral masts and black dismal hulks, looked
death-like in their stillness.

Leonard looked down, and the thought of Chatterton's grim suicide came
back to his soul; and a pale, scornful face, with luminous haunting
eyes, seemed to look up from the stream, and murmur from livid lips,
"Struggle no more against the tides on the surface,--all is calm and
rest within the deep."

Starting in terror from the gloom of his revery, the boy began to talk
fast to Helen, and tried to soothe her with descriptions of the lowly
home which he had offered.

He spoke of the light cares which she would participate with his
mother (for by that name he still called the widow), and dwelt, with an
eloquence that the contrast round him made sincere and strong, on the
happy rural life, the shadowy woodlands, the rippling cornfields, the
solemn, lone churchspire soaring from the tranquil landscape.

Flatteringly he painted the flowery terraces of the Italian exile, and
the playful fountain that, even as he spoke, was flinging up its spray
to the stars, through serene air untroubled by the smoke of cities,
and untainted by the sinful sighs of men. He promised her the love and
protection of natures akin to the happy scene: the simple, affectionate
mother, the gentle pastor, the exile wise and kind, Violante, with
dark eyes full of the mystic thoughts that solitude calls from
childhood,--Violante should be her companion.

"And, oh!" cried Helen, "if life be thus happy there, return with me,
return! return!"

"Alas!" murmured the boy, "if the hammer once strike the spark from the
anvil, the spark must fly upward; it cannot fall back to earth until
light has left it. Upward still, Helen,--let me go upward still!"

CHAPTER XV.

The next morning Helen was very ill,--so ill that, shortly after rising,
she was forced to creep back to bed. Her frame shivered, her eyes were
heavy, her hand burned like fire. Fever had set in. Perhaps she might
have caught cold on the bridge, perhaps her emotions had proved too
much for her frame. Leonard, in great alarm, called in the nearest
apothecary. The apothecary looked grave, and said there was danger. And
danger soon declared itself,--Helen became delirious. For several days
she