he happiness he should
experience in making Helena the mistress of his luxurious home.

But alas for human hopes. The very morning on which he was intending
to start, he was seized with a fever, which kept him confined to his
bed until the spring was far advanced. Sooner than he was able he
started for Springfield in quest of Helena, learning from the woman
whom he had left in charge, that she was dead, and her baby too! The
shock was too much for him in his weak state, and for two weeks he
was again confined to a sick-bed, sincerely mourning the untimely end
of one whom he had truly loved, and whose death his own foolish
conduct had hastened.

Soon after their marriage her portrait had been taken by the best
artist in the town, and this he determined to procure as a memento of
the few happy days he had spent with Helena. But the cottage where
he left her was now occupied by strangers, and after many inquiries,
he learned that the portrait, together with some of the furniture,
had been sold to pay the rent, which became due soon after his
departure. His next thought was to visit her parents, but from this
his natural timidity shrank. They would reproach him, he thought,
with the death of their daughter, whom he had so deeply wronged, and
not possessing sufficient courage to meet them face to face, he again
started for home, bearing a sad heart, which scarcely again felt a
thrill of joy until the morning when he first met with 'Lena, whose
exact resemblance to her mother so startled him as to arouse the
jealousy of his wife.

It would be both needless and tiresome to enumerate the many ways and
means by which Lucy Bellmont sought to ensnare him. Suffice it to
say, that she at last succeeded, and he married her, finding in the
companionship of her son more real pleasure than he ever experienced
in her society. After a time Mrs. Graham, growing weary of
Charleston, where her haughty, overbearing manner made her unpopular,
besought her husband to remove, which he finally did, going to
Louisville, where he remained until the time of his removal to
Woodlawn. Fully believing what the old nurse had told him of the
death of his wife and child, he had no idea of the existence of the
latter, though often in the stillness of night the remembrance of the
little girl whom Durward had pointed out to him in the cars, arose
before him, haunting him with visions of the past, but it was not
until he met her at Maple Grove tha