e was conscious of a vague influence that made the sunbeams fall
coldly, and the songs of Summer mournful.

Hour after hour she lavished all the treasure she knew, and much that
she knew not consciously, to beguile the darkness from Roger's brow; or
recalled again and again her own deeds and words, to review them with
strict judgment, lest they might have set provocation in his path; till
at length her loving thoughts grew restless and painful, her face paled,
her frame wasted away, and over her deep melancholy eyes the Shadow hung
like a black tempest reflected in some clear lake.

Roger was not blind to this change; he did not see who had cast the
first veil of darkness over the pure light that had shone so freely for
him; and while he silently regretted what he deemed the desecration of
the spotless image he had loved, nothing whispered that it was his own
Shadow brooding above the true heart that had toiled so faithfully and
long for his enlightening.

The most painful result of all to Violet was the new coldness of Roger's
manner to her. Shadowed as he was, he did not perceive this change in
himself; but Violet, in the silence of night, or in the solitary hours
she spent in wood and field beside her growing Shadow, felt it with
unmingled pain. Vainly did the Spirit of Light within her counsel her to
persevere, looking only at the end she would achieve; subtler and more
penetrative to her untuned ear were the words of the fiend at her side.

One day she had brooded long and drearily on the carelessness and
coldness of her dear, her disregardful friend, and in her worn and weary
soul revolved whatever sweetness of the past had now fled, and what
pangs of love repulsed and devotion scorned lay before her in the
miserable future; and as she held her throbbing head upon her hands,
wasted with fiery pulses, it seemed to her as if the Shadow, inclining
to her ear, whispered, almost audibly,--

"Think what you have given this man!--your hope and peace; the breath of
your life and the beatings of your heart. All your soul is lavished on
him, and see how he repays you!"

The weak and disheartened girl shivered; the time was past when she
could have despised the voice of this dread companion, when the Shadow
dared not have spoken thus; and with bitter tears swelling into her eyes
she and the Shadow walked forth together to a haunt on the mountain-side
where she had been used to meet Roger.

It was a bare rock, just bel