ed. Tortured, despairing, and half beside himself, he
has fled from this ill-omened passion, and in solitude he now seeks to
subdue that passion. Touched by the woe, the grief, of the Alice of
his youth, it is his intention, as soon as he can know you restored to
happiness and content, to hasten to your mother, and offer his future
devotion as the fulfilment of former vows. On you, and you alone, it
depends to restore Maltravers to the world,--on you alone it depends to
bless the remaining years of the mother who so dearly loves you!"

It may be easily conceived with what sensations of wonder, compassion,
and dismay, Evelyn listened to this tale, the progress of which her
exclamations, her sobs, often interrupted. She would write instantly to
her mother, to Maltravers. Oh, how gladly she would relinquish his
suit: How cheerfully promise to rejoice in that desertion which brought
happiness to the mother she had so loved!

"Nay," said Vargrave, "your mother must not know, till the intelligence
can be breathed by his lips, and softened by his protestations of
returning affection, that the mysterious object of her early romance is
that Maltravers whose vows have been so lately offered to her own child.
Would not such intelligence shock all pride, and destroy all hope? How
could she then consent to the sacrifice which Maltravers is prepared
to make? No! not till you are another's--not (to use the words of
Maltravers) till you are a happy and beloved wife--must your mother
receive the returning homage of Maltravers; not till then can she
know where that homage has been recently rendered; not till then can
Maltravers feel justified in the atonement he meditates. He is willing
to sacrifice himself; he trembles at the thought of sacrificing you! Say
nothing to your mother, till from her own lips she tells you that she
has learned all."

Could Evelyn hesitate; could Evelyn doubt? To allay the fears, to fulfil
the prayers of the man whose conduct appeared so generous, to restore
him to peace and the world; above all, to pluck from the heart of that
beloved and gentle mother the rankling dart, to shed happiness over her
fate, to reunite her with the loved and lost,--what sacrifice too great
for this?

Ah, why was Legard absent? Why did she believe him capricious, light,
and false? Why had she shut her softest thoughts from her soul? But
he--the true lover--was afar, and his true love unknown! and Vargrave,
the watchful serpent,