a
moment's notice, for I may not return here from Paestum. Give me the
letters."

Mrs. Orme tossed back her hair which had been unbound, and as the
letters were placed in her hand, she seemed almost to forget them, so
abstracted was the expression with which her eyes rested on the
dancing waves of the Bay of Naples. The noise of the door closing
behind Mrs. Waul seemed to arouse her, and glancing at the letters
she opened one from Mr. Palma.

The long and harrowing vigil which had lasted from the moment of
bidding General Laurance good-night, on the previous evening, had
left its weary traces in the beautiful face; but rigid resolution had
also set its stem seal on the compressed mouth, and the eyes were
relentless as those of Irene, waiting for the awful consummation in
the Porphyry chamber at Byzantium.

The spirit of revenge had effectually banished all the purer, holier
emotions of her nature; and the hope of an overwhelming Nemesis
beckoned her to a fearful sacrifice of womanly sensibility, but just
now nothing seemed too sacred to be immolated upon the altar of her
implacable Hate. To stab the hearts of those who had wronged her, she
gladly subjected her own to the fiery ordeal of a merely nominal
marriage with her husband's father, resolving that her triumph should
be complete. Originally gentle, loving, yielding in nature, injustice
and adversity had gradually petrified her character; yet beneath the
rigid exterior flowed a lava tide, that now and then overflowed its
stony barriers, and threatened irremediable ruin.

Fully resolved upon the revolting scheme which promised punishment to
the family of Laurance, and

"Self-girded with torn strips of hope,"

she opened the New York letter.

The first few lines riveted her attention. She sat erect, leaned
forward, with eyes wide and strained, and gradually rose to her feet,
clutching the letter, until her fingers grew purple. As she hurried
on, breathing like one whose everlasting destiny is being laid in the
balance, a marvellous change overspread her countenance. The blood
glowed in lip and cheek, the wild sparkle sank, extinguished in the
tears that filled her eyes, the hardness melted away from the
resolute features, and at last a cry like that of some doomed spirit
suddenly snatched from the horrors of perdition and set for ever at
rest upon meads of Asphodel and Amaranth, rolled through the room.

After so many years of reckless hope