sank like ice into Frances' soul, convincing her how hopelessly she loved.

66

"Oh! say not so, Charles," she cried, or you will crush me utterly. See,—see how I must love you to kneel here, and to humble my pride so entirely as to tell you I-I love you."

"Love!

Does love break the heart of the loved one as you have broken mine? Call you such a deadly feeling as this, love? Say, rather, that you hate me.'

"No, no; never! Whatever you do, whatever you say, I shall love you still,-love you for ever!"

"Give me your hate," he replied, "I would rather have that."

But Frances only answered by sobs and wringing her hands.

"If," he continued, "you have wrecked my happiness and hers through love of me, I wish to God you had hated me!"

"I could not," sobbed Frances, utterly over

come.

"You-you won my love two years ago.

Yes you loved me then."

"Never!" he cried vehemently, almost savagely.

"Never! I swear it!"

"Cruel!" murmured Frances.

"Cruel? Yes; what else do you deserve? Had you never told me that falsehood-never deceived me I—I might; but it is too late—all too late. And yet how I love her, love her to madness, and she the-the wife of another!" and he groaned and clenched his hands together, until the nails seemed buried in the very flesh, in utter anguish at the thought.

"Don't talk of her so, Charles, you will break my heart. Have some pity."

"Pity! I have none. What had you for either her or me. I tell you I have no mercy, no pity, only scorn and-and-" he would have said hate, but somehow the word would not come to his lips, as he looked at the bent, bowed figure kneeling so humbly before him.

"Oh! don't go! don't go, Charles. Say one, only one kind word," cried Frances, imploringly, as he turned again to leave her.

"Don't ask me," he replied, "for I have none to give. Don't ask me, lest I say more than I have done. Pray God that he will change your revengeful, cruel heart. I pray that we may never meet again.'

Oh, my God, he's gone!" moaned Frances, as the door closed upon him, "and not one kind word, not one. Oh! I have not deserved it! indeed I haven't," and burying her face in the sofa cushion, she burst into a fresh passion of hopeless, despairing tears.

After a few moments she raised her head again and sobbed and moaned afresh, as she cried

"He was cruel to the last, and all through her. Oh! I will hate her tenfold for this, and work her more misery if I can. I will never repent what I have done. Never! but will make her suffer more frightfully, if-if possible, than this !"

She tossed back her hair, and almost for the moment regained her former proud bearing; for,

strange and unnatural as it may seem, this desperate resolve of making Amy, if she could, more wretched than she had already, soothed and calmed for a time the hopeless nature of her thoughts, and was the one hope that supported her through the long, terrible hours of the night that followed.

CHAPTER VI.

AMY'S COURAGE FAILS HER.

"New joys, new virtues with that happy birth
Are born, and with the growing infant grow.
Source of our purest happiness below
Is that benignant law, which hath entwined
Dearest delight with strongest duty, so
That in the healthy heart and righteous mind
Even they co-exist, inseparably combined.

Oh! bliss for them when in that infant face
They now the unfolding faculties descry,
And fondly gazing, trace or think they trace
The first faint speculation in that eye,
Which hitherto hath rolled in vacancy;
Oh! bliss in that soft couutenance to seek
Some mark of recognition, and espy

The quiet smile which in the innocent cheek

Of kindness and of kind its consciousness doth speak!"

SOUTHEY.

TIME passed rapidly onwards; heedless, in its

flight, of bruised hearts or desolate homes, but ruthlessly brushing past, hurrying on far away with careless front and iron tread; perhaps ere he came round again those hearts would be healed