am his captive, I cannot prevent his intrusion into my presence. I
cannot refuse to hear what he may have to speak. But tell him, moreover,
that no explanation can justify this last base act, and that no
reparation can erase it from my memory. Tell him that she who once
honoured him, and loved him, as all that was noble, and generous, and
chivalric, now looks back upon the past as on a troubled dream; and
that, in future, if she should hear his name, she will remember him but
as one who, cast in a noble mould, might have been worthy of the highest
admiration, but, defaced by an indelible stain, is cast aside as worthy
alike of her indignation and contempt."

As the young girl uttered the last fatal words, she sank back into her
grassy seat by her mother's side, as though exhausted by the effort she
had made. She had torn with violent resolution from her breast the image
which had so long been enshrined there--not only as a picture to be
loved, but as an idol to be worshipped--and though duty had nerved and
sustained her in the effort, nothing could assuage the anguish it
inflicted. She did not love him then, but she had loved him; and her
heart, like the gloomy chamber where death has been, seemed more
desolate for the absence of that which, though hideous to gaze upon,
was now gone forever.

Young Wilford was deeply impressed with the scene, and could not
altogether conceal the emotion which it excited. In a hurried and
agitated voice he promised to deliver her message to Hansford, and
bowing again politely to the ladies, he slowly withdrew.

In a few moments one of the soldiers came with the expected refreshment,
which certainly justified the description which Wilford had given. It
was both coarse and plain. Jerked venison, which had evidently been the
property of a stag with a dozen branches to his horns, and some dry and
moulding biscuit, completed the homely repast. Virginia, and most of her
companions, declined partaking of the unsavoury viands, but Mrs. Temple,
though bitterly lamenting her hard fate, in dooming her to such hard
fare, worked vigorously away at the tough venison with her two remaining
molars--asserting the while, very positively, that no such venison as
that existed in her young days, though, to confess the truth, if we may
judge from the evident age of the deceased animal, it certainly did.

CHAPTER XXXV.

"Yet, though dull hate as duty should be taught,
I know that thou wilt l