replaced the smile; but presently he entered the accustomed place,
followed by a young man of aristocratic bearing, but no likeness
bespoke them to be father and son. Teresa turned pale as marble, but
a tear started to her eye as she observed the complete friendship
and affection that evidently existed between them, and a thrill of
anguish shot through her heart, as she murmured, while her eyes met
the young stranger's gaze--"So near-yet so distant!" Several times in
the course of the evening she fancied a look of recognition passed
over his face, and once, when he touched his companion's arm, her
heart leaped to her mouth, but in an instant, perceiving they both
glanced at some one on the opposite side of the house, she smiled
bitterly, and thought--"How should they know me, in this place, and
so altered!"

Late that night when the city was wrapped in slumber, a lamp burned
brightly in Teresa's chamber, and a figure paced wildly up and down
with clasped hands and floating hair. At last the restless girl
stopped and exclaimed:

"If I am wrong, Heaven help me-but this agony is killing me! If I
sin, I am sinned against, and God judge between us, Villani!"

Then hurriedly, as though fearful her resolution would falter,
Teresa drew her writing-desk towards her, and wrote a note so
rapidly, and with so unsteady a hand, that there was little
resemblance to her usual writing, and then sought for sleep-but in
vain-and at the earliest possible hour she despatched a messenger
with the note.

Just as the hour of eleven chimed, the door of the room where Teresa