incapable of speaking on this subject, as
perhaps--but I know not yet--I must become more cool, and reflect deeply
upon what my conduct ought to be. Alas! my dear Miss Goodwin, little you
suspect how completely your happiness and misery are in my power. Will
you permit me to see you to-morrow?"

"Certainly, sir," replied Alice, "since it seems that you have something
of more than ordinary importance to communicate to me--something, which,
I suppose, I ought to know. I shall see you."

He then took his leave with an air of deep melancholy and sorrow, and
left poor Alice in a state of anxiety very difficult to be described.
Her mind became filled with a sudden and unusual alarm; she trembled
like an aspen leaf; and when her mother came to ask her the result of
the interview, she found her pale as death and in tears.

"Why, Alley, my child," said she, "what is the matter? Why do you look
so much alarmed, and why are you in tears? Has the man been rude or
offensive to you?"

"No, mamma, he has not; but--but--I am to see him again to-morrow,
and until then, mamma, do not ask me anything upon the subject of our
interview to-day."

Her mother felt rather gratified at this. There was, then, to be another
interview, and that was a proof that Woodward had not been finally
discarded. So far, matters did not seem so disheartening as she had
anticipated. She looked upon Alice's agitation, and the tears she had
been shedding, as the result of the constraint which she had put upon
her inclination in giving him, she hoped, a favorable reception; and
with this impression she went to communicate what she conceived to be
the good intelligence to her husband.

Alice, until the next interview took place, passed a wretched time
of it. As the reader knows, she was constitutionally timid and easily
alarmed, and she consequently anticipated, something very distressing
in the disclosures which Woodward was about to make. That there was
something uncommon and painful in connection with Charles Lindsay to
be mentioned, was quite evident from Woodward's language and his
unaccountable agitation. He was evidently in earnest; and, from the
suddenness with which the confession of her attachment to his brother
came upon him, it was impossible, she concluded, that he could have
had time to concoct the hints which he threw out. Could she have been
mistaken in Charles? And yet, why not? Had he not, as it were, abandoned
her ever since the occurrence