I cannot tell how passions rise and fall;
I cannot describe the impetuous words of
the young lover, as pressing again and
again to his lips the cold, passive hand,
which had been resigned to him, prudence,
caution, doubts, resolutions, all vanished
from his view, and melted into nothing.
'Tis for me to tell the simple fact, that
from that brief interview they both
departed promised and pledged to each other
for ever.

Through the rest of this story events
follow one another rapidly.

A few nights after that which I have
just mentioned, Ellen Heathcote disappeared;
but her father was not left long
in suspense as to her fate, for Dwyer,
accompanied by one of those mendicant
friars who traversed the country then even
more commonly than they now do, called
upon Heathcote before he had had time to
take any active measures for the recovery
of his child, and put him in possession of
a document which appeared to contain
satisfactory evidence of the marriage of
Ellen Heathcote with Richard O'Mara,
executed upon the evening previous, as the
date went to show; and signed by both