uld only make you miserable."

"If it is anything about Juliet, tell me freely. Perhaps, you think,
dear Anthony, that I am jealous of you and Juliet; oh, no, I love you
too well for that. I know that I can never be as dear to you as Juliet;
that she is more worthy of your love--Good Heavens! you are weeping.
What have I said to cause these tears? Anthony, dear Anthony, speak to
me. You distract me. Oh, tell me that I have not offended you."

Anthony's lips moved, but no word issued from them. His eyes were firmly
closed, his brow pale as marble, and large tears slid in quick
succession from beneath the jet-black lashes that lay like a shadow upon
his ashen cheeks. And other tears were mingling with those drops of
heart-felt agony--tears of the tenderest sympathy, the most devoted
love, as, leaning that fair face upon the cold brow of the unhappy
youth, Clary unconsciously kissed away those waters of the heart, and
pressed that wan cheek against her gentle bosom. She felt his arm
tighten round her, as she stood in the embrace of the beloved, scarcely
daring to breathe, for fear of breaking the sad spell that had linked
them together. At length Anthony unclosed his eyes, and looked long and
earnestly up in his young companion's face--

"Oh, Clary! how shall I repay this love, my poor innocent lamb? Would to
God we had never met!"

"Do not say that, Anthony. I never knew what it was to be happy until I
knew you."

"Then you love life better than you did, Clary?"

"I love you," sighed Clary, hiding her fair face among his ebon curls,
"and the new life with which you have inspired me is very dear."

"Oh, that I could bid you cherish it for my sake, dear artless girl! But
we must part. In a few hours the faulty being whom you have rashly dared
to love, may be no longer a denizen of earth."

"What do you mean?" cried Clary, starting from his arms, and gazing upon
him with a distracted air. "While I have been idling in my bed something
dreadful has happened. I read it in your averted eyes--on your sad, sad
brow. Do not leave me in this state of torturing doubt. I beseech you to
tell me the cause of your distress?"

"Clary, I cannot; I wish to tell you, but the circumstances are so
degrading, I cannot find words to give them utterance; I feel that you
would despise me--that all good men would upbraid me as a weak
unprincipled fool; yet I call Heaven to witness, that at the moment I
committed the rash act I thought not