voted head should the vengeance fall.

Thus he resolved, but kept his fell design buried in his own breast,
and, by an engaging exterior, sought to lure his victim into his toils.

Sheldon was a brave, generous fellow. Left early an orphan, he had been
reared in the family of Dr. Prague, who was instituted guardian of the
large fortune left by his parents. He was endowed by nature with fine
intellectual abilities, and an exquisite taste for the grand and
beautiful in nature and art, and, during three years' travel in foreign
parts, had so improved upon these natural advantages, as to stand
acknowledged one of the most elegant and accomplished young men of his
country. But it often happens that such high-wrought natures are but
poorly versed in the plodding concerns of this nether world. And thus it
was with him. Alive to every lofty feeling and generous impulse, he
fancied others like himself. Low cunning and artifice were unknown to
his bosom, and consequently he would fall the easier victim to Hardin's
scheme of revenge.

And now there came another fact to this base man's knowledge. Sheldon
had not only robbed him of Marion's affections, but had won and slighted
Kate Prague, to fall in love with Annie Evalyn. Worse still, the passion
was mutual. That _he_ saw and knew long before the parties themselves
had acknowledged the growing love in the still depths of their own
beating hearts, much more given voice to the feeling in words.

Love is so blind, and shy, and unbelieving, the poets tell us. Had
Sheldon's love met no response, then Hardin's revenge had been in part
gratified; but now it was only whetted to a keener edge, for he saw, or
fancied he saw, not only his rival's happiness, but the sister of the
woman he loved pining from an unrequited affection.

As he revolved these dark thoughts in his vile breast, the hand he held
moved suddenly, and the sleeper murmured in her dreams. He bent his ear
eagerly to catch the sound, but it was gone. He smoothed the damp, dark
locks away from the pale brow, and gazed on her thin, attenuated
features--yet more beautiful, they seemed to him, than in the ruddy glow
of health. O that she would open her eyes and gaze up tenderly into his!
And when she was able to sit in a soft-cushioned chair, robed in a snowy
dressing-gown, and propped with pillows, receiving his attentions with
such a pretty shyness and distrust; or a few weeks later, when, still
more recovered, leaning so c