ame back upon
me. Yes, I wept! But I had not destroyed their love. No, no; there I had
miserably failed. A pledge of that love lived. I had left their hearth
barren; Fate sent them a comfort which I had not foreseen. And suddenly
my hate returned, my wrongs rose again, my vengeance was not sated. The
love that had destroyed more than my life,--my soul,--rose again and
cursed me in the face of Helen. The oath which I took when I kissed my
rival's brow, demanded another prey when I kissed the child of those
nuptials."

"You are prepared at last, then, to act?" cried Varney, in a tone of
savage joy.

At that moment, close under the window, rose, sudden and sweet, the
voice of one singing,--the young voice of Helen. The words were so
distinct that they came to the ears of the dark-plotting and guilty
pair. In the song itself there was little to remark or peculiarly
apposite to the consciences of those who heard; yet in the extreme and
touching purity of the voice, and in the innocence of the general spirit
of the words, trite as might be the image they conveyed, there was
something that contrasted so fearfully their own thoughts and minds that
they sat silent, looking vacantly into each other's faces, and shrinking
perhaps to turn their eyes within themselves.

HELEN'S HYMN.

Ye fade, yet still how sweet, ye Flowers! Your scent outlives the bloom!
So, Father, may my mortal hours Grow sweeter towards the tomb!

In withered leaves a healing cure The simple gleaners find; So may our
withered hopes endure In virtues left behind!

Oh, not to me be vainly given The lesson ye bestow, Of thoughts that
rise in sweets to Heaven, And turn to use below.

The song died, but still the listeners remained silent, till at length,
shaking off the effect, with his laugh of discordant irony, Varney
said,--

"Sweet innocence, fresh from the nursery! Would it not be sin to suffer
the world to mar it? You hear the prayer: why not grant it, and let the
flower 'turn to use below'?"

"Ah, but could it wither first!" muttered Lucretia, with an accent of
suppressed rage. "Do you think that her--that his--daughter is to me but
a vulgar life to be sacrificed merely for gold? Imagine away your
sex, man! Women only know what I--such as I, woman still--feel in the
presence of the pure! Do you fancy that I should not have held death
a blessing if death could have found me in youth such as Helen is? Ah,
could she but live to suffer! Die! Well, si