my heart drew nearer to
you,--nearer as if for shelter."

"It is sympathy," said she, with tremulous eagerness,--"that sort of
mysterious sympathy which I have often heard you deny or deride; for I,
too, feel drawn nearer to you, as if there were a storm at hand. I was
oppressed by an indescribable terror in returning home, and the moment I
saw you there came a sense of protection."

Her head sank on my shoulder: we were silent some moments; then we both
rose by the same involuntary impulse, and round her slight form I twined
my strong arm of man. And now we are winding slow under the lilacs and
acacias that belt the lawn. Lilian has not yet heard of the murder,
which forms the one topic of the town, for all tales of violence and
blood affected her as they affect a fearful child. Mrs. Ashleigh,
therefore, had judiciously concealed from her the letters and the
journals by which the dismal news had been carried to herself. I need
scarcely say that the grim subject was not broached by me. In fact,
my own mind escaped from the events which had of late so perplexed
and tormented it; the tranquillity of the scene, the bliss of Lilian's
presence, had begun to chase away even that melancholy foreboding which
had overshadowed me in the first moments of our reunion. So we came
gradually to converse of the future,--of the day, not far distant, when
we two should be as one. We planned our bridal excursion. We would visit
the scenes endeared to her by song, to me by childhood,--the banks
and waves of my native Windermere,--our one brief holiday before life
returned to labour, and hearts now so disquieted by hope and joy settled
down to the calm serenity of home.

As we thus talked, the moon, nearly rounded to her full, rose amidst
skies without a cloud. We paused to gaze on her solemn haunting beauty,
as where are the lovers who have not paused to gaze? We were then on the
terrace walk, which commanded a view of the town below. Before us was
a parapet wall, low on the garden side, but inaccessible on the outer
side, forming part of a straggling irregular street that made one of
the boundaries dividing Abbey Hill from Low Town. The lamps of the
thoroughfares, in many a line and row beneath us, stretched far away,
obscured, here and there, by intervening roofs and tall church towers.
The hum of the city came to our ears, low and mellowed into a lulling
sound. It was not displeasing to be reminded that there was a world
without, as