e darkness of
night,--the darkness of despair. It is more than two months since, and
we have received no tidings of the wanderer. My mother urged him to go
to New York and remain till he heard the fate of Richard. She has
written to him there, again and again, but as yet has received no
answer."

"And he went without one farewell look of her whom he deemed so
vile,--so lost?" said I, pressing Edith's hand against my cold and
sinking heart.

"No, Gabriella. His last act was to kneel by your side, and pray God to
forgive you both. Twice he went to the door, then coming back he bent
over you as if he would clasp you in his arms; then with a wild
ejaculation he turned away. Never saw I such anguish in the human
countenance."

"I have but one question more to ask," said I, after a long pause, whose
dreariness was that which follows the falling of the clods in the grave
hollow. "How did Ernest know that Richard was with me, when we left him
alone in the library?"

"Dr. Harlowe accidentally alluded to your father's history before
Richard, who, you recollect, was in foreign lands during the excitement
it caused, and had never heard the circumstances. As soon as he heard
the name of St. James, I saw him start, and turn to the doctor with a
flushed and eager countenance. Then he drew him one side, and they
conversed together some time in a low undertone; and Richard's face, red
one moment and white the next, flashed with strange and shifting
emotions. At the time when your father's name obtained such unhappy
notoriety, and yours through him, in the public papers, my mother
confided to Dr. Harlowe, who was greatly troubled on your account, the
particulars of your mother's life. She thought it due to your mother's
memory, and his steady friendship. I know not how much he told Richard,
whose manner evidently surprised him, but we all noticed that he was
greatly agitated; and then he abruptly took leave. He came immediately
here, and inquired for you, asked where you were gone, and hurried away
as if on an errand of life and death. Ernest, who was passing along the
winding gallery, heard him, and followed."

Another dreary pause. Then I remembered Julian, and the love-light that
had illumined them both that memorable evening. Edith had not once
alluded to her own clouded hopes. She seemed to have forgotten herself
in her mother's griefs and mine.

"And Julian, my beloved Edith? There is a future for you, a happy one,
is ther