at peace. But a silent sorrow had made its way
into her bosom, gnawing there with the noiselessness and certainty of
the imperceptible worm, generated by the sunlight, in the richness of
the fresh leaf, and wound up within its folds. She had no word of sorrow
in her speech--she had no tear of sorrow in her eye--but there was a
vacant sadness in the vague and wan expression of her face, that needed
neither tears nor words for its perfect development. She was the victim
of a passion which--as hers was a warm and impatient spirit--was doubly
dangerous; and the greater pang of that passion came with the
consciousness, which now she could no longer doubt, that it was entirely
unrequited. She had beheld the return of Ralph Colleton; she had heard
from other lips than his of his release, and of the atoning particulars
of her uncle's death, in which he furnished all that was necessary in
the way of testimony to the youth's enlargement and security; and though
she rejoiced, fervently and deeply, at the knowledge that so much had
been done for him, and so much by herself, she yet found no relief from
the deep sadness of soul which necessarily came with her hopelessness.
Busy tongues dwelt upon the loveliness of the Carolina maiden who had
sought him in his prison--of her commanding stature, her elegance of
form, her dignity of manner and expression, coupled with the warmth of a
devoted love and a passionate admiration of the youth who had also so
undesiringly made the conquest of her own heart. She heard all this in
silence, but not without thought. She thought of nothing besides. The
forms and images of the two happy lovers were before her eyes at all
moments; and her active fancy pictured their mutual loves in colors so
rich and warm, that, in utter despondency at last, she would throw
herself listlessly upon her couch, with sometimes an unholy hope that
she might never again rise from it.

But she was not forgotten. The youth she had so much served, and so
truly saved, was neither thoughtless nor ungrateful. Having just
satisfied those most near and dear to him of his safety, and of the
impunity which, after a few brief forms of law, the dying confession of
the landlord would give him and having taken, in the warm embrace of a
true love, the form of the no-longer-withheld Edith to his arms, he felt
that his next duty was to her for whom his sense of gratitude soon
discovered that every form of acknowledgment must necessarily p