e last chapter, she was sitting alone in her room. A circumstance
which, of itself, should have excited in her emotions of pleasure, threw
her into a train of painful rehearsals. Her father was singing snatches
of his old French songs in the room below--a thing he had not done for
weeks. This reminded her of the visit of Bouchette, and from that point
her mind travelled backwards to all the scenes, and their concomitants,
of which she had of late been the witness. There was the snow-storm in
Cathedral Square, when her father was summoned to the presence of the
Lieutenant-Governor; there was the burning of Roderick's letter; there
was the dreadful altercation and the happy reconciliation between him
and her father; there was the firing on the handsome young American from
the walls; there was the visit to the Sarpys; there was the night ride
back to the town; there was the dazzling magnificence of the Governor's
ball. And through all this she saw the weird form of Batoche, flitting
in and out, silent, mysterious, terrible. She saw the yearning, anxious,
loving face of Roderick Hardinge. She saw Zulma leaning towards her,
and, as it were, growing to her with a sister's fondness. The spell of
Zulma's affection appeared to her like the embrace of a great spirit,
overpowering, irresistible, and withal delicious in its strength. And in
spite of her she saw--why should the vision be so vivid?--the beautiful,
sad eyes of Cary Singleton, as he sat beside her at the Sarpy mansion,
or parted from her at the St. Louis Gate. She remembered how noble he
looked as he conferred with Roderick under the walls, when bearing the
flag of truce; how proudly he walked back to the ranks of the army, nor
even deigned to look back when a miscreant fired at him from the
ramparts. She recalled every word that Zulma had spoken about him, so
that she seemed to know him as well as Zulma herself.

When Pauline had gone over all these things several times, in that
extraordinary jumbling yet keenly distinct way with which such
reminiscences will troop to the memory, she felt positively fatigued,
and a sense of oppression lay like a burden at her heart. She closed her
eyes while a shudder passed through her frame. She feared that she might
be ill, and it required all the tranquil courage of her nature not to
yield outright to the collapse with which she was threatened.

At length she bethought her of a means to regain her serenity. She would
write a long