perfume which lingered behind her remained to tell me
that it was not all a dream, and I the most presumptuous being alive.

"And so the hour that opened in disaster ended in joy; and from the
heart of what I deemed an irredeemable disaster rose a hope that for
several days put wings to my feet. Then something began to tarnish my
delight, an impalpable dread seized me, and though I worked with love
and fury upon my house, which I had begun adorning for my bride, I began
to question if she had played the coquette in smiling upon Edwin
Urquhart, and whether in the mockery of the laugh with which she had
dismissed my accusations there had not been some regret for a love she
dared not entertain, but yet suffered to lose. The memory of the glow in
her eyes, as she turned away from him at my step, returned with growing
power, and I decided that if this were coquetry, it were sweeter than
love, and longed to ask her to play the coquette with me. But she never
did, and though she did not smile upon him again in my presence, I felt
that her beauty was more bewildering, her voice more enchanting, when he
was in the room with us than when chance or my purpose found us alone.
To settle my doubts, I left watching her and began to watch him, and
when I found that he betrayed nothing, I turned my attention from them
both and bestowed it upon Miss Dudleigh."

CHAPTER IX.

MARAH.

"Great heaven! why had I not noticed Miss Dudleigh before! In her
changed face, and in the wasting of her delicate form, I saw that my
fears were not all vain, inasmuch as they were shared by her; and
shocked at evidences so much beyond my expectations, I knew not whether
to shed the bitter tears which rose to my eyes in pity for her or in
rage for myself.

"We were sitting all together, and I had a full opportunity to observe
the mournful smile that now and then crossed her lips as Marah uttered
some brighter sally than common or broke--as she often did--into song
that rippled for a minute through the heavy air and then ceased as
suddenly as it had begun. She looked much oftener at Marah than at
Urquhart, and seemed to be asking in what lay the charm that subdued
everybody, even herself. And when she seemed to receive no answer to her
secret questioning, her eyes fell and a sigh stirred her lips, which, if
unheard by the preoccupied man at her side, rang on in my ears long
after I had bidden farewell to her and the siren whose smiles,
intention