nd earnest eyes checked me in the midst.

"'Now I am going down stairs this minute to put a stop to all this at
once. I could not have believed stupidity could have gone so far. I
shall see my brother and have an end put to his journeys here: good
heavens! to think of it.'

"This I could not object to, of course. Indeed, from the first of this
very peculiar 'arrangement' I had not been consulted by either Mary or
her brother, and I had a dreamy sort of feeling that by and by we
should all wake up and find Mr. Gardner was only an incubus, instead
of the unpleasant reality he was getting to be.

"I sat still for nearly or quite half an hour, when Mary returned to
her chamber on tiptoe and looking very pale.

"'Now, what is it?' said I earnestly, for I saw it was no joke to poor
Mary: her very lips were pallid and trembling, and her hand was
pressed to her side as if to still the convulsive springing of her
heart.

"'I--I have been talking it over to William,' she said, in a thick,
hasty voice; 'I told him I could go no further with this man--this no
man--who is willing to take me, without so much as inquiring if I have
a heart to bestow--but oh! oh, Susan--Randolph has gone!' she sobbed
out in a complete passion of grief, that could not brook further
concealment or restraint.

"'But how do you know this?' I asked, after, as you may suppose, I had
soothed and hushed her as far as I was able.

"'William told me so himself. I told him I could not, would not marry
Mr. Gardner--and he would not believe me--called me a foolish,
nonsensical child, who didn't know my own mind--and at last, when
nothing else would have any effect on his mind, I said--I said--ah!
Susan, how hard it was and is to say it! I loved another!'

"'And how then, my poor child?'

"'Then--he just in his quiet, calm way, that kills one, you know--for
it seems the death-blow to all sentiment--he said, 'Mary, if you mean
young Randolph, whom I have sometimes met here, playing the lover,
all I can say is, he is too discreet to contest the field, witness
this note of farewell which was sent to my office this afternoon. He
desires his very respectful compliments to you, Mary.' Would you
believe it, Susan? I took that note--and read every word of it; yes,
and I smiled, too, as I gave it back to him, as if it were the most
indifferent thing in the world--though I felt then, as I do now, every
line of it chilling my heart like ice.'

"'Dear Mary,' I said