scination, a horrible curiosity, rooted him to the spot.

Elinor looked up with a smile into her lover's face. Algernon seemed
perfectly to understand the meaning of that playful glance, and replied
to it in lively tones, "Yes, dear Nell, sing my favorite song!" and
Elinor instantly complied, with a blush and another sweet smile. Mark
was no lover of music, but that song thrilled to his soul, and the words
never afterwards departed from his memory. A fiend might have pitied the
crushed heart of that humbled and most unhappy man.

Mark Hurdlestone rushed from the garden, and sought the loneliest spot
in the park, to give utterance to his despair. With a heavy groan he
dashed himself upon the earth, tearing up the grass with his hands, and
defacing the flowers and shrubs that grew near him as he clutched at
them in his strong agony. The heavens darkened above him, the landscape
swam round and round him in endless circles, and the evening breeze,
that gently stirred the massy foliage, seemed to laugh at his mental
sufferings.

He clenched his teeth, the big drops of perspiration gathered thick and
fast upon his brow, and tossing his hands frantically aloft, he cursed
his brother, and swore to pursue him with his vengeance to the grave.
Yes, that twin brother, who had been fed at the same breast--had been
rocked in the same cradle--had shared in the same childish sports--it
was on his thoughtless but affectionate and manly heart he bade the dark
shadow of his spirit fall. "And, think not," he cried, "that you,
Algernon Hurdlestone, shall triumph in my despair. That woman shall be
mine, yet. Mine, though her brow has been polluted by your lips, and
your profligate love has contaminated her for ever in my eyes. But I
will bind you both with a chain, which shall render you my slaves for
ever." Then, rising from the ground, he left the spot which had
witnessed the only tender emotion he had ever felt, with a spirit full
of bitterness, and burning for revenge.

CHAPTER III.

Oh life! vain life! how many thorny cares
Lie thickly strewn in all thy crooked paths!--S.M.

There is no sight on earth so revolting as the smile with which
hypocrisy covers guilt, without it be revenge laughing at its victim.

When Algernon returned at night to the Hall, his brother greeted him
with a composed and smiling aspect. He had communicated to his father
the scene he had witnessed at the cottage, and the old man's anger
exc