s me! I really thought that Cora was fascinated by
that fellow in London." (This was the irreverent manner in which Mr.
Clarence spoke of his grace the Duke of Cumbervale.) "And I thought that
she only married Rothsay from a sense of duty, keeping her word, and all
that sort of thing! I can't understand her grieving herself to death for
him now!"

"Oh, Clarence! she was fascinated by the rank and splendor and personal
attractions of the young duke! Her fancy, vanity, ambition and
imagination were fired; but her heart was never touched! She had not
seen Rothsay for so long a time that his image had somewhat faded in her
memory when this splendid young fellow crossed her path and dazzled her
for a time! It was a brief madness--nothing more! But you can see for
yourself how really she loved Rothsay when you see that anxiety for his
fate is breaking her heart."

"I see, mother dear; but I don't understand! And I don't know what on
earth we can do for her! If my father does not think proper to suggest
something, we must not, for if we should do so it would make matters
much worse."

"Yes," sighed the old lady; and the subject was dropped.

Clarence had said that he did not understand Cora's state of mind. No;
nor did old Mrs. Rockharrt. How could they, when Cora had not understood
herself, until suffering brought self-knowledge?

From her childhood up she had loved Rule Rothsay as a sister loves a
favorite brother. In her girlhood, knowing no stronger love, on the
strength of this she accepted the offered hand of Rothsay, and was
engaged to be married to him. She meant to have been faithful to him;
but it was a long engagement, during which she traveled with her
grandparents for three years, while the memory of her calmly loved
betrothed husband grew rather dim. Then came her meeting with the
handsome and accomplished young Duke of Cumbervale, and the infatuation,
the hallucination that enslaved her imagination for a period. Then began
the mental conflict between inclination and duty, ending in her
resolution to forget her English lover and to be true to Rule.

Up to the very wedding day she had suppressed and controlled her
feelings with heroic firmness, but on the evening of that day, while
waiting for her husband, the long, severe tension of her nerves utterly
gave way, and when found in a paroxysm of tears and questioned by him,
in her wretchedness and misery she had confessed the infidelity of her
heart and plead