oke not; a tear
quivered through her drooping eyelashes, and her lip grew pale.

"But I must away," continued Mortimer. "Yonder bark awaits me," and he
drew her gently towards the brink. "It will part us, perhaps for ever!
No, no, not for ever. Thou wilt wed--it may be--and when I
return--Horror!"

He started back, as from a spectre which his imagination had created.

"That ring--take it. Let it be thy monitor; and should another seek
thy love, look on it; for it shall warn thee. It shall be a silent
witness of thy thoughts--one that will watch over thee in my stead;
for the genii of that ring," said he, playfully, "are my slaves."

But she returned the pledge.

"I cannot. Do not wind the links around me thus, lest they gall my
spirit; lest I feel the fetters, and wish them broken!"

"Then I swear," said Mortimer, vehemently, "no hand but thine shall
wear it!"

He raised his arm, and the next moment the ring would have been
hurled into the gulf, but ere it fell he cast another glance at his
mistress. Her heart was full. The emotion she sought to quell quivered
convulsively on her lip. He seized her hand; but when he looked again
upon the ring it was broken!

By what a strange and mysterious link are the finest and most subtle
feelings connected with external forms and appearances! By what unseen
process are they wrought out and developed; their hidden sources, the
secret avenues of thought and emotion, discovered--called forth by
circumstances the most trivial and unimportant! Adeline turned pale;
and Mortimer himself shuddered as he beheld the omen. But another
train of feelings had taken possession of her bosom; or rather her
thoughts had acquired a new tendency by this apparently casual
circumstance; and true to the bent and disposition of our nature, now
that the slighted good was in danger of being withdrawn, she became
anxious for its possession. She received the token. A slight crack
upon its rim was visible, but this fracture did not prevent its being
retained on the hand.

After this brief development their walk was concluded. They breathed
no vows. Mortimer would not again urge her. A lock of hair only was
exchanged; and shortly the last adieu was on their lips, and the broad
deck of the vessel beneath his feet, whence he saw the tall cliff sink
down into the ocean, and with it his hopes, that seemed to sink for
ever into the same gulf!

Some few years afterwards, on a still evening, about the sam