ger it was continued. On the
possession of the lovely girl as his wife, depended, so he felt, his
future happiness. Were she to decline his offer he would be
wretched. In this state of mind, he called one day upon Miss
Linmore, hoping and fearing, yet resolved to know his fate. The
moment he entered her presence he observed a change. She did not
smile; and there was something chilling in the steady glance of her
large dark eyes.

"Have I offended you?" he asked, as she declined taking his offered
hand.

"Yes," was the firm reply, while the young lady assumed a dignified
air.

"In what?" asked Florence.

"In proving false to her in whose ears you first breathed words of
affection."

The young man started as if stung by a serpent.

"The man," resumed Miss Linmore, "who has been false to Edith
Walter, never can be true to me. I wouldn't have the affection that
could turn from one like her. I hold it to be light as the
thistle-down. Go! heal the heart you have almost broken, if,
perchance, it be not yet too late. As for me, think of me as if we
had all our lives been strangers--such, henceforth, we must ever
remain."

And saying this, Catharine Linmore turned from the rebuked and
astonished young man, and left the room. He immediately retired.

CHAPTER II.

EVENING, with its passionless influences, was stealing softly down,
and leaving on all things its hues of quiet and repose. The heart of
nature was beating with calm and even pulses. Not so the heart of
Edwin Florence. It had a wilder throb; and the face of nature was
not reflected in the mirror of his feelings, He was alone in his
room, where he had been during the few hours that had elapsed since
his interview with Miss Linmore. In those few hours, Memory had
turned over many leaves of the Book of his Life. He would fain have
averted his eyes from the pages, but he could not. The record was
before him, and he had read it. And, as he read, the eyes of Edith
looked into his own; at first they were loving and tender, as of
old; and then, they were full of tears. Her hand lay, now,
confidingly in his; and now it was slowly withdrawn. She sat by his
side, and leaned upon him--his lips were upon her lips; his cheek
touching her cheek; their breaths were mingling. Another moment and
he had turned from her coldly, and she was drooping towards the
earth like a tender vine bereft of the support to which it had held
by its clinging tendrils. Ah! If he could