answered--

"My mistress is at home, sir."

Mortimer stepped into the hall. The servant threw open the door
announcing his name, and Mortimer was in the presence of Adeline.

The meeting was too sudden for preliminary forms and courtesies. There
was no time for preparation. The blow was struck, and a thousand idle
inquiries were perhaps saved; but Adeline, after one short gaze of
astonishment and dismay, covered her face; a low groan escaped her,
and she threw herself convulsively on the chair.

Mortimer hastened to her relief, but she shrank from his touch. She
spoke not; her anguish was beyond utterance.

"Adeline!"

She shuddered as though the sound once more awakened the slumbering
echoes of memory.

"Leave me, Mortimer," she cried. "I must not"----

"Leave thee!" it was repeated in a tone that no words can describe.
Inquiry, apprehension, were depicted in his look as if existence hung
on a word; while a pause followed, compared with which the rack were a
bed of roses. The silence was too harrowing to sustain.

"And why? I know it all now," cried the unhappy Mortimer; and the
broad impress of despair was upon his brow, legibly, indelibly
written.

"I am here to redeem my pledge; and thou! O Adeline! Why--why? Say how
is my trust requited? Were long years too, too long, to await my
return? I have not had a thought thou hast not shared. And yet thou
dost withhold thy troth!"

"It is plighted!"

"To whom?"

"To my husband?"

Though anticipating the reply, the words went like an arrow to his
heart. We will not describe the separation. With unusual speed he
descended the path towards the village. He rushed past the cleft with
averted looks, fearful that he might be tempted to leap the gulf. He
entered the tavern; but so changed in manner and appearance that his
companions, fearful that his senses were disordered, earnestly
besought him to take some rest and refreshment.

In the end he was persuaded to retire to bed. But ere long fever and
delirium had seized him; and in the morning he was pronounced by a
medical attendant to be in extreme danger, requiring the interposition
of rest and skill to effect his cure.

* * * * *

It was in the cold and heavy mist of a December evening that a female
was seated upon the tall cliff above the chasm we have described. As
the solitary gull came wheeling around her, she spoke to it with great
eagerness and gesticulation.

"Leave