he was not there, and the
bed had evidently not been occupied. As I was about to leave the room,
in some alarm, my eye rested upon a letter, which was lying on the
table, and addressed to me. With a trembling hand I tore it open, and
oh, my God! it told me all--the faithlessness of my Mary, the villainy
of my friend."

"The perfidious wretch," cried Bernard, with indignation.

"Beware, Alfred Bernard," said the clergyman; "you know not what you
say. My tale is not yet done. I remember every word of that brief letter
now--although more than thirty years have since passed over me. It ran
thus:

"'Forgive me, Arthur; I meant not to have wronged you when I came, but
in an unhappy moment temptation met me, and I yielded. My perfidy cannot
be long concealed. Heaven has ordained that the fruit of our mutual
guilt shall appear as the witness of my baseness and of Mary's shame.
Forgive me, but above all, forgive her, Arthur.'

"This was all. No name was even signed to the death warrant of all my
hopes. At that moment a cold chill came over my heart, which has never
left it since. That letter was the Medusa which turned it into stone. I
did not rave--I did not weep. Believe me, Alfred Bernard, I was as calm
at that moment as I am now. But the calmness was more terrible than open
wrath. It was the sure indication of deep-rooted, deliberate revenge. I
wrote a letter to my father, explaining every thing, and then saddling
my horse, I turned his head towards old Howard's cottage, and rode like
the lightning.

"The old man was sitting in his shirt sleeves, in the porch. He saw me
approach, and in his loud, hearty voice, which fell like fiendish
mockery upon my ear, he cried out, 'Hallo, Arthur, my boy, come to say
good-bye to your sweetheart again, hey! Well, that's right. You couldn't
part like loveyers before the stranger and the old folks. Shall I call
my little Molly down?"

"'Old man,' I said, in a hollow, sepulchral voice, 'you have no
daughter'--and throwing myself from my horse, I rushed into the house.

"I will not attempt to describe the scene which followed. How the old
man rushed to her room, and the truth flashed upon his mind that she had
fled with her guilty lover. How he threw himself upon the bed of his
lost and ruined daughter, and a stranger before to tears, now wept
aloud. And how he prayed with the fervor of one who prays for the
salvation of a soul, that God would strike with the lightning of his
wrath