to go once
more and ascertain. Audley went. Lady Jane Horton, who was suffering
under a disease which not long afterwards proved fatal, was too ill
to receive him. He was shown into the room set apart as Nora's. While
waiting for her entrance, he turned mechanically over the leaves of an
album, which Nora, suddenly summoned away to attend Lady Jane, had left
behind her on the table. He saw the sketch of his own features; he read
words inscribed below it,--words of such artless tenderness, and such
unhoping sorrow, words written by one who had been accustomed to regard
her genius as her sole confidant, under Heaven; to pour out to it,
as the solitary poet-heart is impelled to do, thoughts, feelings, the
confession of mystic sighs, which it would never breathe to a living
ear, and, save at such moments, scarcely acknowledge to itself. Audley
saw that he was beloved, and the revelation, with a sudden light,
consumed all the barriers between himself and his own love. And at that
moment Nora entered. She saw him bending over the book. She uttered
a cry, sprang forward, and then sank down, covering her face with her
hands. But Audley was at her feet. He forgot his friend, his trust;
he forgot ambition, he forgot the world. It was his own cause that he
pleaded,--his own love that burst forth from his lips. And when the two
that day parted, they were betrothed each to each. Alas for them, and
alas for Harley! And now this man, who had hitherto valued himself as
the very type of gentleman, whom all his young contemporaries had so
regarded and so revered, had to press the hand of a confiding friend,
and bid adieu to truth. He had to amuse, to delay, to mislead his
boy-rival,--to say that he was already subduing Nora's hesitating
doubts, and that with a little time, she could be induced to consent to
forget Harley's rank, and his parent's pride, and become his wife. And
Harley believed in Egerton, without one suspicion on the mirror of his
loyal soul.

Meanwhile, Audley, impatient of his own position,--impatient, as strong
minds ever are, to hasten what they have once resolved, to terminate a
suspense that every interview with Harley tortured alike by jealousy
and shame, to pass out of the reach of scruples, and to say to himself,
"Right--or wrong, there is no looking back; the deed is done,"--Audley,
thus hurried on by the impetus of his own power of will, pressed for
speedy and secret nuptials,--secret, till his fortunes, then