to do me honest service."

[Illustration]

"Oh! no more--no more!" sobbed Flora.

"Yes, much more, if you will tell me of words which shall be stronger
than others in which to paint my love, my faith, and my constancy."

"Be prudent," said Henry. "Say no more."

"Nay, upon such a theme I could speak for ever. You may cast me off,
Flora; but until you tell me you love another, I am yours till the
death, and then with a sanguine hope at my heart that we shall meet
again, never, dearest, to part."

Flora sobbed bitterly.

"Oh!" she said, "this is the unkindest blow of all--this is worse than
all."

"Unkind!" echoed Holland.

"Heed her not," said Henry; "she means not you."

"Oh, no--no!" she cried. "Farewell, Charles--dear Charles."

"Oh, say that word again!" he exclaimed, with animation. "It is the
first time such music has met my ears."

"It must be the last."

"No, no--oh, no."

"For your own sake I shall be able now, Charles, to show you that I
really loved you."

"Not by casting me from you?"

"Yes, even so. That will be the way to show you that I love you."

She held up her hands wildly, as she added, in an excited voice,--

"The curse of destiny is upon me! I am singled out as one lost and
accursed. Oh, horror--horror! would that I were dead!"

Charles staggered back a pace or two until he came to the table, at
which he clutched for support. He turned very pale as he said, in a
faint voice,--

"Is--is she mad, or am I?"

"Tell him I am mad, Henry," cried Flora. "Do not, oh, do not make his
lonely thoughts terrible with more than that. Tell him I am mad."

"Come with me," whispered Henry to Holland. "I pray you come with me at
once, and you shall know all."

"I--will."

"George, stay with Flora for a time. Come, come, Mr. Holland, you ought,
and you shall know all; then you can come to a judgment for yourself.
This way, sir. You cannot, in the wildest freak of your imagination,
guess that which I have now to tell you."

Never was mortal man so utterly bewildered by the events of the last
hour of his existence as was now Charles Holland, and truly he might
well be so. He had arrived in England, and made what speed he could to
the house of a family whom he admired for their intelligence, their high
culture, and in one member of which his whole thoughts of domestic
happiness in this world were centered, and he found nothing but
confusion, incoherence, mystery, and the wildest dismay.