be still serious was no matter of surprise. For fifteen months she
had sought to banish every dream of Arthur, every thought but that in
loving him she had sinned against her God. Time and prayer had in some
measure softened the first acute agony of her feelings; she thought
she was conquering them altogether, when his unexpected appearance
excited every feeling anew. Yet in that harrowing interview still she
had been firm. She had even told him a secret, which it was almost
death to reveal, that he might forget her; for how could he wed with
her? And yet even that barrier he would have passed, and his generous,
his determined love, would linger on her memory spite of every effort
to think of him no more.

It was a fearful struggle, and often and often she yearned to confess
all to her father, whom she loved with no common love; but she knew
too well, not only the grief such tidings would be to him, but what
his judgment must be, and she shrunk in agony from the condemnation
of her feelings by another, constantly as she was condemning them
herself.

Henriquez had been absent from the vale during Stanley's unexpected
visit, and he tarried long enough to excite the alarm, not only of his
child but of their domestics; nor was its cause when explained likely
to ease Marie's anxiety. He had been attacked on the day of his
intended return by a strange sensation of giddiness, followed by
insensibility, which appeared to have weakened him more than he had
thought compatible with so brief an illness. He made light of it, but
still he was uneasy, not that he feared death himself, but that it
might take him from his Marie ere his wishes were accomplished, and
her earthly happiness, as he thought, secured. The first attack was
but the forerunner of others, sometimes very slight and brief, at