east
possible injury to her father. Mr. Beaufort naturally put the case
before her in the strongest point of the dilemma. He was to be
ruined--utterly ruined; a pauper, a beggar, if Camilla did not save
him. The master of his fate demanded his daughter's hand. Habitually
subservient to even a whim of her parents, this intelligence, the
entreaty, the command with which it was accompanied, overwhelmed her.
She answered but by tears; and Mr. Beaufort, assured of her submission,
left her, to consider of the tone of the letter he himself should write
to Mr. Spencer. He had sat down to this very task when he was summoned
to Arthur's room. His son was suddenly taken worse: spasms that
threatened immediate danger convulsed and exhausted him, and when these
were allayed, he continued for three days so feeble that Mr. Beaufort,
his eyes now thoroughly opened to the loss that awaited him, had no
thoughts even for worldly interests.

On the night of the third day, Philip, Robert Beaufort, his wife, his
daughter, were grouped round the death-bed of Arthur. The sufferer had
just wakened from sleep, and he motioned to Philip to raise him. Mr.
Beaufort started, as by the dim light he saw his son in the arms of
Catherine's! and another Chamber of Death seemed, shadow-like, to
replace the one before him. Words, long since uttered, knelled in his
ear: "There shall be a death-bed yet beside which you shall see the
spectre of her, now so calm, rising for retribution from the grave!" His
blood froze, his hair stood erect; he cast a hurried, shrinking glance
round the twilight of the darkened room: and with a feeble cry covered
his white face with his trembling hands! But on Arthur's lips there was
a serene smile; he turned his eyes from Philip to Camilla, and murmured,
"She will repay you!" A pause, and the mother's shriek rang through the
room! Robert Beaufort raised his face from his hands. His son was dead!

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Jul. And what reward do you propose?

It must be my love."--The Double Marriage.

While these events, dark, hurried, and stormy, had befallen the family
of his betrothed, Sidney lead continued his calm life by the banks of
the lovely lake. After a few weeks, his confidence in Camilla's fidelity
overbore all his apprehensions and forebodings. Her letters, though
constrained by the inspection to which they were submitted, gave him
inexpressible consolation and delight. He began, however, early