rimes against
purity and innocence, and almost tempt the weak heart to revolt against
the dispensations of Providence.

When their eyes rested on each other, is it necessary to say that the
melancholy position of Lucy was soon read in those large orbs that
seemed about to dissolve into tears? The shock of the stranger's sudden
and unexpected appearance, when taken in connection with the loss of him
forever, and the sacrifice of her love and happiness, which, to save her
father's life, she had so heroically and nobly made, was so strong, she
felt unable to rise. He approached her, struck deeply by the dignified
entreaty for sympathy and pardon that was in her looks.

"I am not well able to rise, dear Charles," she said, breaking the short
silence which had occurred, and extending her hand; "and I suppose
you have come to reproach me. As for me, I have nothing to ask you
for now--nothing to hope for but pardon, and that you will forget me
henceforth. Will you be noble enough to forgive her who was once your
Lucy, but who can never be so more?"

The dreadful solemnity, together with the pathetic spirit of tenderness
and despair that breathed in these words, caused a pulsation in his
heart and a sense of suffocation about his throat that for the moment
prevented him from speaking. He seized her hand, which was placed
passively in his, and as he put it to his lips, Lucy felt a warm tear or
two fall upon it. At length he spoke:

"Oh, why is this, Lucy?" he said; "your appearance has unmanned me;
but I see it and feel it all. I have been sacrificed to ambition, yet I
blame you not."

"No, dear Charles," she replied; look upon me and then ask yourself who
is the victim."

"But what has happened?" he asked;

"What machinery of hell has been at work to reduce you to this? Fraud,
deceit, treachery have done it. But, for the sake of God, let me know,
as I said, what has occurred since our last interview to occasion this
deplorable change--this rooted sorrow--this awful spirit of despair that
I read in your face?

"Not despair, Charles, for I will never yield to that; but it is enough
to say, that a barrier deep as the grave, and which only that can
remove, is between us forever in this life."

"You mean to say, then, that you never can be mine?"

"That, alas, is what I mean to say--what I must say."

"But why, Lucy--why, dearest Lucy--for still I must call you so; what
has occasioned this? I cannot understand it."