g priest with
something of that respect which Mr. Dale had never before conceded but
to Virtue. Could he have then but looked into the dark and stormy heart,
which he twice misread!

"It is well,--very well," muttered Harley, when the door had closed upon
the parson. "The viper and the viper's brood! So it was this man's son
that I led from the dire Slough of Despond; and the son unconsciously
imitates the father's gratitude and honour--Ha, ha!" Suddenly the bitter
laugh was arrested; a flash of almost celestial joy darted through the
warring elements of storm and darkness. If Helen returned Leonard's
affection, Harley L'Estrange was free! And through that flash the face
of Violante shone upon him as an angel's. But the heavenly light and
the angel face vanished abruptly, swallowed up in the black abyss of the
rent and tortured soul.

"Fool!" said the unhappy man, aloud, in his anguish--"fool! what then?
Were I free, would it be to trust my fate again to falsehood? If, in all
the bloom and glory of my youth, I failed to win the heart of a village
girl; if, once more deluding myself, it is in vain that I have tended,
reared, cherished, some germ of woman's human affection in the orphan
I saved from penury,--how look for love in the brilliant princess, whom
all the sleek Lotharios of our gaudy world will surround with their
homage when once she alights on their sphere! If perfidy be my
fate--what hell of hells, in the thought!--that a wife might lay her
head in my bosom, and--oh, horror! horror! No! I would not accept her
hand were it offered, nor believe in her love were it pledged to me.
Stern soul of mine, wise at last, love never more,--never more believe
in truth!"

CHAPTER XVI.

As Harley quitted the room, Helen's pale sweet face looked forth from a
door in the same corridor. She advanced towards him timidly.

"May I speak with you?" she said, in almost inaudible accents; "I have
been listening for your footstep."

Harley looked at her steadfastly. Then, without a word, he followed her
into the room she had left, and closed the door.

"I, too," said he, "meant to seek an interview with yourself--but later.
You would speak to me, Helen,--say on. Ah, child, what mean you? Why
this?"--for Helen was kneeling at his feet.

"Let me kneel," she said, resisting the hand that sought to raise her.
"Let me kneel till I have explained all, and perhaps won your pardon.
You said something the other evening. It has