sight; how a forgery of his handwriting----'

'What! who could have told you what my father's last note contained?'

'He who wrote it confessed it in my hearing--Ulick Burke. Nay, I can
even repeat the words' But as I spoke, a violent trembling seized her;
her lips became bloodless; she tottered, and sank upon the chair. I had
only time to spring forward and catch her in my arms, and her head fell
heavily back, and dropped on my shoulder.

I cannot, if I would, repeat the words which in all the warm eloquence
of affection I spoke. I could mark by her heightened colour that the
life-blood again coursed freely in her veins, and could see that she
heard me. I told her how through every hardship and suffering, in all
the sorrow of disappointed ambition, in the long hours of captivity,
my heart had ever turned to her; and then, when we did meet, to see her
changed!

'But you do not blame--you cannot blame me if I believed----'

'No, if you tell me now that but for this falsehood you have not
altered; that your heart is still as much my own as I once thought it.'

A faint smile played on her lips as her eyes were turned upon me; while
her voice muttered--

'And do you still love me?'

I pressed her hand to my lips in rapture, when suddenly the door opened
and Paul Rooney rushed in.

'Another candidate for the leg of---- Eh! what's this?' said he, as I
rose and advanced to meet him; while Louisa, blushing deeply, buried her
head in her hand, and then starting up, left the room.

'Captain, Captain,' said Paul gravely, 'what does this mean? Do you
suppose that because there is some difference in our rank in life,
that you are privileged to insult one who is under my protection? Is it
because you are the Guardsman and I the attorney that you have dared to
take a liberty here which in your own walk you couldn't venture on?'

'My dear Mr. Rooney, you mistake me sadly.'

'If I do not mistake you, I'll put a hole in your body as sure as my
name's Paul,' was the quick reply.

'You do, then, and wrong me to boot. I have been long and ardently
attached to Miss Bellew. From the hour I met her at your house I loved
her. It is the first time we have met since our long separation: I
determined it should not be lost. I 've asked her to be my wife.'

'You have! And what does she say?'

'She has consented.'

'Rum-ti-iddity, iddity!' said Paul, snapping his fingers, and capering
about the room like a man deranged. 'Give me yo