can think of nothing but how to save you. May Heaven help me, and give me
wisdom for that."

"This is idle," said Helen Rolleston, gently but firmly. "I have had the
best advice for months, and I get worse; and, Mr. Hazel, I shall never be
better. So aid me to bow to the will of Heaven. Sir, I do not repine at
leaving the world; but it does grieve me to think how my departure will
affect those whose happiness is very, very dear to me."

She then looked at the letter, blushed, and hesitated a moment; but ended
by giving it to him whom she had applied to as her religious adviser.

"Oblige me by reading that. And, when you have, I think you will grant me
a favor I wish to ask you. Poor fellow! so full of hopes that I am doomed
to disappoint."

She rose to hide her emotion, and left Arthur Wardlaw's letter in the
hands of him who loved her, if possible, more devotedly than Arthur
Wardlaw did; and she walked the deck pensively, little dreaming how
strange a thing she had done.

As for Hazel, he was in a situation poignant with agony; only the heavy
blow that had just fallen had stunned and benumbed him. He felt a natural
repugnance to read this letter. But she had given him no choice. He read
it. In reading it he felt a mortal sickness come over him, but he
persevered; he read it carefully to the end, and he was examining the
signature keenly, when Miss Rolleston rejoined him, and, taking the
letter from him, placed it in her bosom before his eyes.

"He loves me; does he not?" said she wistfully.