ever seen, for this one romance of Hugh's seemingly unromantic life was
a secret with himself. No one save his uncle had witnessed his emotions
when told that she was dead; no one else had seen his bitter tears or
heard the vehement exclamation: "You've tried to teach me there was no
hereafter, no heaven for such as she, but I know better now, and I am
glad there is, for she is safe forever."

These were not mere idle words, and the belief then expressed became
with Hugh Worthington a firm, fixed principle, which his skeptical uncle
tried in vain to eradicate. "There was a heaven, and she was there,"
comprised nearly the whole of Hugh's religious creed, if we except a
vague, misty hope, that he, too, would some day find her, how or by what
means he never seriously inquired; only this he knew, it would be
through her influence, which even now followed him everywhere, producing
its good effects. It had checked him many and many a time when his
fierce temper was in the ascendant, forcing back the harsh words he
would otherwise have spoken, and making him as gentle as a child; and
when the temptations to which young men of his age are exposed were
spread out alluringly before him, a single thought of her was sufficient
to lead him from the forbidden ground.

Only once had he fallen, and that two years before, when, as if some
demon had possessed him, he shook off all remembrances of the past, and
yielding to the baleful fascinations of one who seemed to sway him at
will, plunged into a tide of dissipation, and lent himself at last to an
act which had since embittered every waking hour. As if all the events
of his life were crowding upon his memory this night, he thought of two
years ago, and the scene which transpired in the suburbs of New York,
whither immediately after his uncle's death he had gone upon a matter of
important business. In the gleaming fire before him there was now