. My love for
her remained unshattered; the more tender, perhaps, for a sentiment of
compassion. But my pride was shocked, my heart was wounded. My love was
not mean and servile. Enough for me to think that she would be at
least saved from Margrave. Her life associated with his!--contemplation
horrible and ghastly!--from that fate she was saved. Later, she would
recover the effect of an influence happily so brief. She might form some
new attachment, some new tie; but love once withdrawn is never to be
restored--and her love was withdrawn from me. I had but to release her,
with my own lips, from our engagement,--she would welcome that release.
Mournful but firm in these thoughts and these resolutions, I sought Mrs.
Ashleigh's house.

CHAPTER XLII.

It was twilight when I entered, unannounced (as had been my wont in our
familiar intercourse), the quiet sitting-room in which I expected to
find mother and child. But Lilian was there alone, seated by the open
window, her hands crossed and drooping on her knee, her eye fixed upon
the darkening summer skies, in which the evening star had just stolen
forth, bright and steadfast, near the pale sickle of a half-moon that
was dimly visible, but gave as yet no light.

Let any lover imagine the reception he would expect to meet from his
betrothed coming into her presence after he had passed triumphant
through a terrible peril to life and fame--and conceive what ice froze
my blood, what anguish weighed down my heart, when Lilian, turning
towards me, rose not, spoke not, gazed at me heedlessly as if at some
indifferent stranger--and--and--But no matter. I cannot bear to recall
it even now, at the distance of years! I sat down beside her, and took
her hand, without pressing it; it rested languidly, passively in mine,
one moment; I dropped it then, with a bitter sigh.

"Lilian," I said quietly, "you love me no longer. Is it not so?"

She raised her eyes to mine, looked at me wistfully, and pressed her
hand on her forehead; then said, in a strange voice, "Did I ever love
you? What do you mean?"

"Lilian, Lilian, rouse yourself; are you not, while you speak, under
some spell, some influence which you cannot describe nor account for?"

She paused a moment before she answered, calmly, "No! Again I ask what
do you mean?"

"What do I mean? Do you forget that we are betrothed? Do you forget how
often, and how recently, our vows of affection and constancy have been
exchanged?"