tally inadmissible.

We reached Madame Beck's door. Jean Baptiste's clock tolled nine. At
this hour, in this house, eighteen months since, had this man at my
side bent before me, looked into my face and eyes, and arbitered my
destiny. This very evening he had again stooped, gazed, and decreed.
How different the look--how far otherwise the fate!

He deemed me born under his star: he seemed to have spread over me its
beam like a banner. Once--unknown, and unloved, I held him harsh and
strange; the low stature, the wiry make, the angles, the darkness, the
manner, displeased me. Now, penetrated with his influence, and living
by his affection, having his worth by intellect, and his goodness by
heart--I preferred him before all humanity.

We parted: he gave me his pledge, and then his farewell. We parted: the
next day--he sailed.

CHAPTER XLII.

FINIS.

Man cannot prophesy. Love is no oracle. Fear sometimes imagines a vain
thing. Those years of absence! How had I sickened over their
anticipation! The woe they must bring seemed certain as death. I knew
the nature of their course: I never had doubt how it would harrow as it
went. The juggernaut on his car towered there a grim load. Seeing him
draw nigh, burying his broad wheels in the oppressed soil--I, the
prostrate votary--felt beforehand the annihilating craunch.

Strange to say--strange, yet true, and owning many parallels in life's
experience--that anticipatory craunch proved all--yes--nearly _all_ the
torture. The great Juggernaut, in his great chariot, drew on lofty,
loud, and sullen. He passed quietly, like a shadow sweeping the sky, at
noon. Nothing but a chilling dimness was seen or felt. I looked up.
Chariot and demon charioteer were gone by; the votary still lived.

M. Emanuel was away three years. Reader, they were the three happiest
years of my life. Do you scout the paradox? Listen. I commenced my
school; I worked--I worked hard. I deemed myself the steward of his
property, and determined, God willing, to render a good account. Pupils
came--burghers at first--a higher class ere long. About the middle of
the second year an unexpected chance threw into my hands an additional
hundred pounds: one day I received from England a letter containing
that sum. It came from Mr. Marchmont, the cousin and heir of my dear
and dead mistress. He was just recovering from a dangerous illness; the
money was a peace-offering to his conscience, reproaching him in the