upted by the entrance of a visitor, he did not
say whom.

"Thank heaven for your escape. I can bear your father's conduct, if
it is the means of saving you from her," exclaimed Mrs. Graham, while
her son continued: "And now, mother, I have a request to make of
you--a request which you must grant. I have loved 'Lena too well to
cease from loving her so soon. And though I can never again think to
make her my wife, I will not hear her name lightly spoken by the
world, who must never know what we do. Promise me, mother, to keep
secret whatever you may know against her."

"Do you think me bereft of my senses," asked Mrs. Graham petulantly,
"that I should wish to proclaim my affairs to every one?"

"No, no, mother," he answered, "but you are easily excited, and say
things you had better not. Mrs. Livingstone bears 'Lena no good
will, you know, and sometimes when she is speaking disparagingly of
her, you may be thrown off your guard, and tell what you know. But
this must not be. Promise me, mother, will you?"

Durward was very pale, and the drops of sweat stood thickly about his
mouth as he asked this of his mother who, mentally congratulating
herself upon her son's escape, promised what he asked, at the same
time repeating to him all that she heard from Mrs. Livingstone
concerning 'Lena, until Durward interrupted her with, "Stop, stop,
I've heard enough. Nothing which Mrs. Livingstone could say would
have weighed a straw, but the conviction of my own eyes and ears have
undeceived me, and henceforth 'Lena and I are as strangers."

Nothing could please Mrs. Graham better, for the idea of her son's
marrying a poor, unknown girl, was dreadful, and though she felt
indignant toward her husband so peculiar was her nature that she
would not have had matters otherwise if she could and when Durward,
who disliked _scenes_, suggested the propriety of her not speaking to
his father on the subject at present he assented, saying that it
would be more easy for her to refrain, as she was intending to start
for Louisville on the morrow.

"I've been contemplating a visit there for some time and before Mr.
Graham left home this morning, I had decided to go," said she, at the
same time proposing that Durward should accompany her.

To this consented willingly, for in the first shock of his
disappointment, a change of place and scene was what he most desired.
The hot blood of the south, which burned in his veins, seemed all on
fire