rehensions.

'It is not Leta--it is only I,' she murmured at length, in a tone of
plaintive sadness, which for the moment touched his heart. 'I am sorry
that I awakened you. But I will go away again.'

'Nay, remain,' he exclaimed, restraining her by the folds of her dress,
and, with a slight effort, seating her beside him upon the lounge. 'You
are not--you must not feel offended at such a poor jest as that?'

'Is it all a jest?' she inquired. 'Can you say that the greeting you
gave me did not spring inadvertently from the real preoccupation of your
mind?'

'Of the mind? Preoccupation?' said Sergius. 'By the gods! but it is a
difficult question to answer. I might possibly, in some dreamy state,
have been thinking carelessly of that Greek girl whom you have so
constantly about you. Even you cannot but acknowledge that she has her
traits of beauty; and if so, it is hard for a man not to admire them.'

'For mere admiration of her, I care but little,' she responded. 'But I
would not that she should learn to observe it. And what could I do, if
she, perceiving it, were to succeed in drawing your love from me? What
then would there be for me to do, except to die?'

'To die? This is but foolish talk, AEnone,' he said; and he fastened an
inquiring gaze upon her, as though wishing to search into her soul, and
find out how much of his actions she already knew. Evidently some
fleeting expression upon her countenance deceived him into believing
that she had heard or seen more than he had previously supposed, for,
with another faint attempt at a careless laugh, he continued:

'And if, at the most, there has been some senseless trifling between the
girl and myself--a pressure of the hand, or a pat upon the cheek, when
meeting by any chance in hall or garden--would you find such fault with
this as to call it a withdrawal of my love from you? To what, indeed,
could such poor, foolish pastime of the moment amount, that it should
bring rebuke upon me?'

To nothing, indeed, if judged by itself alone, for that was not the age
of the world when every trivial departure from correctness of conduct
was looked upon as a crime; and had this been all, and the real
affection of his heart had remained with her, AEnone would have taken
comfort. But now she knew for certain that, in uncomplainingly enduring
any familiarities, Leta could not, at all times, have maintained her
customary mien of timorous retirement, and must, therefore, to some
e