s. There was not one trace of
sternness; all was softened. The look was what she fancied he might have
turned upon her had she lain there dead, ere yet the love of their early
and ill-fated union had grown cold in his heart. There was something in
it which reminded her of days and feelings gone, never to return. And
while she looked in his face with a sweet and mournful fascination, tears
unconsciously wet the pillow on which her poor head was resting. Unable
to speak, unable to move, she heard him say--"It was not your fault,
Gertrude--it was not yours, nor mine. There is a destiny in these things
too strong for us. Past is past--what is done, is done forever; and even
were it all to do over again, what power have I to mend it? No, no; how
could I contend against the combined power of passions, circumstances,
influences--in a word, of fate? You have been good and patient, while
I--; but no matter. Your lot, Gertrude, is a happier one than mine."

Mrs. Marston heard him and saw him, but she had not the power, nor even
the will, herself to speak or move. He appeared before her passive sense
like the phantasm of a dream. He stood up at the bedside, and looked on
her steadfastly, with the same melancholy expression. For a moment he
stooped over her, as if about to kiss her face, but checked himself,
stood erect again at the bedside, then suddenly turned; the curtain fell
back into its place, and she saw him no more.

With a strange mixture of sweet and bitter feelings this vision rested
upon the memory of Mrs. Marston, until, gradually, deep slumber again
overcame her senses, and the incident and all its attendant circumstances
faded into oblivion.

It was past eight o'clock when Mrs. Marston awoke next morning. The sun
was shining richly and cheerily in at the windows; and as the remembrance
of Marston's visit to her chamber, and the unwonted manifestations of
tenderness and compunction which accompanied it, returned, she felt
something like hope and happiness, to which she had long been a stranger,
flutter her heart. The pleasing reverie to which she was yielding was,
however, interrupted. The sound of stifled sobbing in the room reached
her ear, and, pushing back the bed-curtains, and leaning forward to look,
she saw her maid, Willett, sitting with her back to the wall, crying
bitterly, and striving, as it seemed, to stifle her sobs with her apron,
which was wrapped about her face.

"Willet, Willett, is it you who ar