ir the error of my life. Can you--will you--overlook and forgive the
past, and be again to me all that you once were? I know that I do not
deserve it, but I will try to atone for the past if, dear Isabel, you
will be my wife."

"Stay, Dr. Taschereau!" interposed Isabel, "I am just about to marry a
clergyman who is going abroad."

Had a cannon-ball fallen at his feet, Louis could scarcely have been
more dumbfounded than he was at this intelligence. He became deadly
pale, and she thought he would faint.

"You are ill, Dr. Taschereau. Let me ring for some wine."

"Don't ring, I don't want any. Is this true?" he continued, "are you
really going to marry another?"

"I am, and I do not see why you should be surprised."

"Why do you make me love you so? Why must your image intrude itself into
every plan, and all be done as you would approve, if, after all, you are
to marry another? You would not wonder at the effect of what you have
told me, if you knew how the hope that you would forgive me and yet be
mine, has been my only comfort a long, dreary time."

"You have no right to speak in this way, Dr. Taschereau; it was I who
had cause of complaint, not you. But I am very sorry that you should
feel so; very sorry that you should have suffered yourself to imagine
for a moment that we could ever be again to each other what we once
were. And do not think that my present engagement is the cause of my
saying this; for never, never, under any circumstances, could I have
been your wife after what has passed. I say not this in anger or
ill-will for the past, I do not regret it--I feel it was best."

"Will you not tell me the name of the fortunate clergyman?" he asked.

"Certainly, if you wish it; it is no secret. It is Everard Arlington."

"Everard Arlington!" he exclaimed in unfeigned astonishment. "It was the
knowledge of his hopeless attachment that made me hope--almost make
sure--that you had not entirely ceased to love me, and might yet be
mine; the more despairing he became, the higher my hopes rose."

"How could you, how dared you, indulge such thoughts after what I said
in the woods at D----?" exclaimed Isabel, indignantly. "If Everard had
so long to believe that his attachment was unavailing, it was because
Isabel Leicester would not give her hand unless her heart went with it;
because I respected his affection too much to trifle with it, and not at
all on your account. Believe me, that from the time I first learned