I am placed? Even though all things are pre-ordained, neither of us can
be absolved from doing our duty to God and ourselves."

"Absolved!" echoed Paul. "Why, Rachel, look you, we are forced to do it,
or not to do it, precisely as the motive culminates into action, but we
are not sensible of the compulsion; and so am I under the necessity to
tell you that Walter Grierson is playing false with you, according to
the inexorable law of his nature. It is not an hour yet since Agnes
Ainslie called here with some old trinkets, and requested me to make a
ring out of them; nor was I left without the means of understanding that
it was to be given in exchange for the locket."

"Is it possible?" cried she. "And can it be that I am deceived, and that
secret powers are working my ruin?"

"Not necessarily your ruin," said he; "no mortal knows the birth of the
next moment. The womb of fate is never empty; but no man shall dare to
say what is in it till the issue of every moment proves itself. Nor does
all this take away hope, for hope is in the ancient decree, like all the
other evolutions of time, including that hope's being deferred till the
heart grows sick; and," he added, as he looked sorrowfully into her
face, "that is the fate of mine, for, know you, Rachel Grierson, I have
long loved you, and have now seen that the riches you are to inherit put
you beyond the sphere of my ambition. I have often wished--pardon me
Rachel--yes, I have often wished you might be left a beggar, that I
might have the privilege of using the invention with which I am gifted
to astonish the world by my handiwork, and bring wealth to her I loved."

"I am surrounded on all sides by difficulties," sighed the young woman,
as she seemed to find herself in the mazes of an unseen destiny. As she