hat nothing troubles me much! Will
you not believe me?"

"I never doubted your word before, Lina; but now--forgive me--I feel
that you are concealing something terrible from me. When I left you,
this morning, you promised to walk with me, and I hurried here the
moment I was free, longing to take a ramble over the hills--will you not
go?"

"Not to-day. I cannot--I am ill."

"Do not seek to excuse yourself! Say at once that you do not choose to
go."

"You misunderstand me, Ralph, indeed you do."

"Forgive me, Lina; I am so maddened by the sight of your tears, that I
scarcely know what I am saying. Only confide in me--can you not trust
me, your lover, your betrothed?"

"God help me!" broke from Lina's white lips, but the exclamation was
unheeded by the young man in his agitation.

"Have you a desire to hide anything from me--can you love, when you
refuse to trust me."

"Ralph, leave me! If you have any mercy, go away, and let me be alone."
In her frenzy she threw up her arms with a gesture which seemed to him
almost one of repulsion. He looked at her for a moment, his heart
bursting with the first revelation of its woe, then muttering--

"Lina, has it come to this?" he sprang from the room, and the sound of
his flying footsteps on the stair recalled her to a consciousness of
what had befallen her.

She strove to utter his name, but it died husky and low in her parched
throat. She must fly--anywhere to be out in the air, for the atmosphere
of that close chamber seemed stifling her. She caught up a shawl which
lay on a table, and rushed from the room and from the house. A sudden
thought, which seemed instinct rather than reason, had made her start
thus madly away to search for old Ben, the honest protector of her
childhood, hoping that from him she could gather some explanation of the
secret that seemed crushing the life from her frame.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE SLAVE AND HER MASTER.

The carriage which conveyed General Harrington, went at a rapid speed,
till it entered the city. The General seemed unconscious of his unusual
progress, and was lost in what seemed a disagreeable reverie, till he
awoke amid a crash of omnibuses, and a whirl of carriages in Broadway.
Here he checked the driver, and leaving the carriage, bade him proceed
to the club, and await his return there. He paused upon the side-walk,
till the man was out of sight, then turning into a cross street, he
walked rapidly forward into a neighb