my husband!'

"The rainbow dissolved; the waterfall deluged the valley; the
mountains were covered with waves; the skies grew pitchy dark; I saw
nothing more.

* * * * *

"My sensations upon waking were those of a diver who has risen from
the tranquil depths to the surface. Hubbub recommenced; horror
returned. My hair was shaven close to my skull; my head ached
dismally; I moved my hand with an effort, and my eyelids were so weak
that I could not unseal them for a time.

"I was lying in my old chamber at Glengoyle, and Heraine was sitting
at my bedside. Her garments were sable, her brown hair thin, her face
placid, as of yore, but marked by deep-seated grief, and the magnetism
of will and courage was gone from it. To the eye she was the same; to
the mind, a weak and broken thing. Crime had changed both our natures;
she had been tutor and governess before, and I the passive, submissive
creature; but sin had made me bold, and sorrow worn her to a woman.

"'Luke,' she said, in the same lullaby tone, 'do you know me? do you
recognize the place? are you still weak?'

"'Heraine,' said I, sternly, 'do not the wrongs we have done each
other forbid this intimacy?'

"'Oh, Luke!' she replied, 'let us not uncover the past. I have buried
your sin with its victim, and watched you through weary months, and
prayed God to pardon you.'

"'Can God pardon your sin to me, Heraine?'

"'I trust so, Luke,' she said feebly, 'if ever in my life I treasured
you a hard thought or did you any injury.'

"'Is it no injury,' I said, 'to have lured me by a false promise from
my quiet home? I have endured the torture of cities, seas, suns, and
storms. Your pledge was my spur and talisman through all. But you had
cheated me with a lie. You were another's already. For you I have
stained my hands with blood and shut heaven against my soul!'

"'As I have an account to Settle, Luke,' she pleaded, 'I meant your
happiness only. To have told you that I was wedded would have pained
you. I thought to familiarize you with scenes and sounds, by making my
regard an incentive to adventure. It was your mother's plan. I yielded
to the deception, and believed it good."

"'It was a wicked falsehood,' I said; 'you knew the weakness of my
nature--that my sensitiveness was a disease--that to cross me was to
kill. You have made both of us wretched forever.'

"My cruelty was murdering her; her face grew deathly in its pallor,
an