of contempt. All this delighted Edward; it seemed to be the
just retribution on the former insolence of the other, and he longed
for his return to Frankfort to witness the thousand slights that awaited
him.

'Such a strange and unaccountable thing is our triumph over others for
the want of those qualities in which we see ourselves deficient. No one
is so loud in decrying dishonesty and fraud as the man who feels the
knave m his own heart. Who can censure female frailty like her who has
felt its sting in her own conscience? You remember the great traveller,
Mungo Park, used to calculate the depths of rivers in Africa by rolling
heavy stones over their banks and watching the air-bubbles that mounted
to the surface; so, oftentimes, may you measure the innate sense of a
vice by the execration some censor of morals bestows upon it. Believe
me, these heavy chastisements of crime are many times but the cries
of awakened conscience. I speak strongly, but I feel deeply on this
subject.

'But to my story. It was the custom for Marguerite and her lover each
evening to visit the theatre, where the minister had a box; and as they
were stepping into the carriage one night as usual, Van Halsdt drove up
to the door and asked if he might accompany them. Of course, a refusal
was out of the question; he was a member of the mission; he had done
nothing to forfeit his position there, however much he had lost in the
estimation of society generally; and they acceded to his request, still
with a species of cold courtesy that would, by any other man, have been
construed into a refusal.

'As they drove along in silence, the constraint increased at every
moment, and had it not been for the long-suppressed feeling of hated
rivalry, Norvins could have pitied Van Halsdt as he sat, no longer with
his easy smile of self-satisfied indifference, but with a clouded, heavy
brow, mute and pale. As for Marguerite, her features expressed a
species of quiet, cold disdain whenever she looked towards him, far more
terrible to bear than anything like an open reproach. Twice or thrice
he made an effort to start some topic of conversation, but in vain; his
observations were either unreplied to, or met a cold, distant assent
more chilling still. At length, as if resolved to break through their
icy reserve towards him, he asked in a tone of affected indifference--

'"Any changes in Frankfort, mademoiselle, since I had the pleasure of
seeing you last?"

'"None,