y got any further
information from him. They must wait till Evan Murray returned with the
officers from the forts. Then he rose.

"You are in no danger here," he said to Mr. Murray. "There is a guard
detailed for every adjacent plantation. The affair is altogether
crushed.--I must go just the same," he muttered, and entered his cabinet
alone.

It was about two hours afterward, that Eloise--with whom, after having
roused herself from the horror of the shock, a feeling of unspeakable
pity, awe, and quaking terror had merged in another of equally
indescribable and cruel relief and freedom--was wakened from the dull
dream that sogged upon her brain in answering the place of two nights'
lost rest, by a servant at the door who brought to her a note. All
confused at the instant of starting, suddenly memory struck out the late
events in letters of fire. Half awake, with her pulse beating in great
shocks all about her wherever a pulse could play, she tore the note open
and read its but half-interpretable hieroglyphs twice before she
comprehended it.

"Distasteful as the thought of me may be at such a time, you
must endure it for a moment.

"I return to you to-day the property of which many months
ago I despoiled you. I leave it in better condition than I
found it, and so well has it met my demands, that, in spite
of all expenditure, you will find the customary income for
the length of time in the cabinet-escritoire untouched.

"I leave it because it becomes impossible for me to retain
it. I leave it because it becomes impossible for me to live
longer in the house with you, to breathe the air you
breathe, to feel myself growing desperate beneath the sound
of your voice. Because I cannot see you in sorrow for
another. Because self-control can go no farther. I leave it,
Eloise, because I love you!

"If I cherished one hope, it would not be at this time that
I should tell you my deadly secret. I have none, and
therefore I go.

"EARL ST. GEORGE ERNE."

A sickly thrill of something like disgust swept over Eloise as she read,
that one could think of anything but the great horrid fact of the hour.
Then she trembled from head to foot, and hid her face with shame and
sobs. "What does it mean?" she cried. "'At such a time'? What time? Oh!
he thinks--can he think?--I love Marlboro'! Will no one keep him? Is he
gone? He leaves because he lov