each drop of my blood-woven with each tissue-throbbing in each nerve -bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh-poison-root from which every thought buds to wither-the curse to have loved and to have trusted you!"

66 Merciful heaven! can I bear this?" cried Caroline, clasping her hands to her bosom. "And is my sin so great is it so unpardonable! Oh, if in a heart so noble, in a nature so great, mine was the unspeakable honour to inspire an affection thus enduring, must it be only-only as a curse! Why can I not repair the past? You have not ceased to love me. Call it hate it is love still! And now, no barrier between our lives, can I never, never again-never, now that I know I am less unworthy of you by the very anguish I feel to have so stung you-can I never again be the Caroline of old!"

"Ha, ha!" burst forth the unrelenting man, with a bitter laugh! see the real coarseness of a woman's nature under all its fine-spun frippery! Behold these delicate creatures, that we scarcely dare to woo! how little they even comprehend the idolatry they inspire! The Caroline of old! Lo, the virgin whose hand we touched with knightly homage, whose first bashful kiss was hallowed as the gale of paradise, deserts ussells herself at the altar-sanctifies there her very infidelity to us; and when years have passed, and a death has restored her freedom, she comes to us as if she had never pillowed her head on another's bosom, and says, 'Can I not again be the Caroline of old!' We men are too rude to forgive the faithless. Where is the Caroline I loved? You-aremy Lady Montfort! Look round. On these turfs, you, then a child, played beside my children. They are dead, but less dead to me than you. Never dreamed I then that a creature so fair would be other than a child to my grave and matured existence. Then, if I glanced towards your future, I felt no pang to picture you grown to womanhoodanother's bride. My hearth had for years been widowed. I had no thought of second nuptials. My son

would grow up to enjoy my wealth, and realise my cherished dreamshe was snatched from me! Who alone had the power to comfort?— who alone had the courage to steal into the darkened room where I sate mourning? sure that in her voice there would be consolation, and the sight of her sympathising tears would chide away the bitterness of mine? -who but the Caroline of old! Ah, you are weeping now. But Lady Montfort's tears have no talisman to me! You were then still a child -as a child, my soothing angel-A year or so more, my daughter, to whom all my pride of House-all my hope of race, had been consignedshe whose happiness I valued so much more than my ambition, that I had refused her hand to your young Lord of Montfort-puppet that, stripped of the millinery of titles, was not worthy to replace a doll!-my daughter, I folded her one night in my arms,-I implored her to confide in me if ever she nursed a hope that I could further-knew a grief that I could banish; and she promisedand she bent her forehead to my blessing-and before day-break she had fled with a man whose very touch was dishonour and pollution, and was lost to me for ever. Then, when I came hither to vent at my father's grave the indignant grief I suffered not the world to see, you and your mother (she who professed for me such loyal friendship, such ineffaceable gratitude), you two came kindly to share my solitude — and then, then you were a child no more!

and a sun that had never gilt my life, brightened out of the face of the Caroline of old!" He paused a moment, heeding not her bitter weeping; he was rapt from the present hour itself by the excess of that anguish which is to woe what ecstasy is to joy-swept along by the flood of thoughts that had been pent within his breast through the solitary days and haunted nights, which had made the long transition-state from his manhood's noon to its gathering eve. And in that pause there came from afar off a melodious, melancholy strain-softly, softly borne over the cold blue waters

softly, softly through the sere autumnal leaves-the music of the magic flute !

"Hark!" he said, "do you not remember? Look to that beech-tree yonder! Summer clothed it then! Do you not remember! as under that tree we stood that same, same note came, musical as now, undulating with rise and fall-came, as if to interpret, by a voice from fairy-land, the beatings of my own mysterious heart. You had been pleading for pardon to one less ungrateful-less perfidious than my comforter proved herself. I had listened to you, wondering why anger and wrong seemed banished from the world; and I murmured, in answer, without conscious thought of myself, 'Happy the man whose faults your bright charity will admonish-whose griefs your tenderness will chase away! But when, years hence, children are born to yourself, spare me the one who shall most resemble you, to replace the daughter whom I can only sincerely pardon when something else can spring up to my desolate being something that I can cherish without the memory of falsehood and the dread of shame.' Yes, as I ceased, came that music; and as it thrilled through the summer air, I turned and met your eyes-turned and saw your blush--turned and heard some faint faltering words drowning the music with diviner sweetness; and suddenly I knew as by a revelation, that the Child I had fostered had grown the Woman whom I loved. My own soul was laid bare to me by the flash of hope. Over the universe rushed light and colour! Oh, the Caroline of old! What wonder that she became so fatally, so unspeakably beloved! As some man in ancient story, banished from his native land, is told by an oracle to seek a happier isle in undiscovered seas-freights with his all a single bark-collects on his wandering altar the last embers of his abandoned hearth places beside it his exiled household gods; so all that my life had left to me, hallowing and hallowed, I stored in I tore myself from the old native soil, the old hardy skies. Through Time's wide ocean I saw

you.

but the promised golden isle. Fables, fables-lying oracle-sunken vessel!-visionary isle! And life to me had till then been so utterly without love!-had passed in such arid labours, without a holiday of romance all the fountains of the unknown passion sealed till the spell struck the rock, and every wave, every drop sparkled fresh to a single star. Yet my boyhood, like other men's, had dreamed of its Ideal. There at last that Ideal, come to life, bloomed before me; there, under those beechtrees,-the Caroline of old. O wretched woman, now weeping at my side, well may you weep! Never can earth give you back such love as you lost in mine.'

"I know it, I know it-fool that I was-miserable fool!"

66

Ay, but comfort yourself-wilder and sadder folly in myself! Your mother was right. The vain child,' she said, 'knows not her own heart. She is new to the world-has seen none of her own years. For your sake, as for hers, I must insist on the experiment of absence. A year's ordeal-see if she is then of the same mind.' I marvelled at her coldness; proudly I submitted to her reasonings; fearlessly I confided the result to you. Ah! how radiant was your smile, when, in the parting hour, I said, 'Summer and you will return again!' In vain, on pretence that the experiment should be complete, did your mother carry you abroad, and exact from us both the solemn promise that not even a letter should pass between us that our troth, made thus conditional, should be a secret to all-in vain, if meant to torture me with doubt. In my creed, a doubt is itself a treason. How lovely grew the stern face of Ambition-how Fame seemed as a messenger from me to you! In the sound of applause I said, 'They cannot shut out the air that will carry that sound to her ears! All that I can win from Honour shall be my marriage-gifts to my queenly bride.' See that arrested pile-begun at my son's birth, stopped awhile at his death, recommenced on a statelier plan when I thought of your footstep on its floors-your shadow on its

walls. Stopped now for ever! Architects can build a palace; can they build a home? But you-you-you, all the while your smile on another's suit-your thoughts on another's

hearth!"

"Not so!-not so! Your image never forsook me. I was giddy, thoughtless, dazzled, entangled; and I told you in the letter you returned to me-told you that I had been deceived!"

"Patience-patience! Deceived! Do you imagine that I do not see all that passed as in a magician's glass Caroline Montfort, you never loved me; you never knew what love was. Thrown suddenly into the gay world, intoxicated by the effect of your own beauty, my sombre figure gradually faded dim-pale ghost indeed in the atmosphere of flowers and lustres, rank with the breath of flatterers. Then came my lord the Marquess a cousin, privileged to familiar intimacy, to visit at will, to ride with you, dance with you, sit side by side with you in quiet corners of thronging ball-rooms, to call you 'Caroline.' Tut, tut-ye are only cousins, and cousins are as brothers and sisters in the affectionate House of Vipont; and gossips talk, and young ladies envy-finest match in all England is the pretty-faced Lord of Montfort! And your mother, who had said, 'Wait a year' to Guy Darrell, must have dreamed of the cousin, and schemed for his coronet, when she said it. And I was unseen, and I must not write; and the absent are always in the wrong,-when cousins are present! And I hear your mother speak of me--hear the soft sound of her damaging praises. Another long speech from your clever admirer! Don't fancy he frets; that kind of man thinks of nothing but blue-books and politics.' And your cousin proposes, and you say with a sigh, No: I am bound to Guy Darrell;' and your mother says to my Lord, Wait, and still come as a cousin!' And then, day by day, the sweet Mrs Lyndsay drops into your ear the hints that shall poison your heart. Some fable is dressed to malign me; and you cry, "Tis not true; prove it true, or I still keep my faith to Guy Darrell.' Then comes the kind com

pact'If the story be false, my cousin must go ;' and if it be true, you will be my own duteous child. Alas! your poor cousin is breaking his heart. A lawyer of forty has a heart made of parchment!' Aha! you were entangled, and of course deceived! Your letter did not explain what was the tale told to you. I care not a rush what it was. It is enough for me to know, that if you had loved me, you would have loved me the more for every tale that belied me. So the tale was credited, because a relief to credit it. So the compact was kept-so the whole bargain hurried over in elegant privacy-place of barter an ambassador's chapel. Bauble for bauble— a jilt's faith for a mannikin's coronet. Four days before the year of trial expired, 'Only four days more!' I exclaimed, drunk with rapture. The journals lie before me. Three columns to Guy Darrell's speech last night; a column more to its effect on a senate, on an empire; and two lines-two little lines to the sentence that struck Guy Darrell out of the world of men! Marriage in high life.

Marquess of Montfort - Caroline Lyndsay.' And the sun did not fall from heaven! Vulgarest of ends to the tritest of romances! In the gay world these things happen every day. Young ladies are privileged to give hopes to one man-their hands to another. 'Is the sin so unpardonable?' you ask, with ingenuous simplicity. Lady Montfort, that depends! Reflect! What was my life before I put it into your keeping? Barren of happiness, I grant-saddened, solitary-to myself a thing of small value.

But what was that life to others a thing full of warm beneficence, of active uses, of hardy powers fitted to noble ends! In paralysing that life as it was to others, there may be sin wider and darker than the mere infidelity to love. And now do you dare to ask, 'Can I again be the Caroline of old?'”

"I ask nothing-not even pardon," said the miserable woman. "I might say something to show where you misjudge me something that might palliate; but no, let it be." Her accents were so drearily hopeless that Darrell abruptly withdrew his

eyes from her face, as if fearful that the sight of her woe might weaken his resolve. She had turned mechanically back. They walked on in gloomy silence side by side, away now from the lake-back under the barbed thorn-tree-back by the mossgrown crag-back by the hollow trunks, and over the fallen leaves of trees that had defied the storms of centuries, to drop, perhaps, brittle and sapless, some quiet day when every wind is lulled.

The flute had ceased its music; the air had grown cold and piercing; the little park was soon traversed; the gate came in sight, and the humble vehicle without it. Then, involuntarily, both stopped; and on each there came at once the consciousness that they were about to part part, never perhaps in this world to meet again; and, with all that had been said, so much unspoken their hearts so full of what, alas! their lips could not speak.

"Lady Montfort," at length said Darrell.

At the sound of her name she shivered.

"I have addressed you rudely-harshly-"

"No-no

"But that was the last exercise of a right which I now resign for ever. I spoke to her who had once been Caroline Lyndsay; some gentler words are due to the widow of Lord Montfort. Whatever the wrongs you

have inflicted on me-wrongs inexpiable-I recognise no less in your general nature qualities that would render you, to one whom you really loved and had never deceived, the blessing I had once hoped you would prove to me."

She shook her head impatiently, piteously.

"I know that in an ill-assorted union, and amidst all the temptations to which flattered beauty is exposed, your conduct has been without reproach. Forget the old man whose thoughts should now be on his grave."

"Hush, hush-have human mercy!" "I withdraw and repent my injustice to your motives in the protection you have given to the poor girl whom Lionel would wed; I thank you for that protection,though I refuse consent to my kinsman's prayer. Whatever her birth, I must be glad to know that she whom Lionel so loves is safe from a wretch like Losely. More-one word more-wait-it is hard for me to say it-Be happy-I cannot pardon, but I can bless you. Farewell for ever!"

More overpoweringly crushed by his tenderness than his wrath, before Caroline could recover the vehemence of her sobs, he had ceased-he was gone-lost in the close gloom of a neighbouring thicket, his hurried headlong path betrayed by the rustle of mournful boughs swinging back with their withered leaves.

A YOUNG man, in all the vigour of abounding life, shuts himself up in his room, prevents the access of fresh air, closing the windows, chimney, and chinks, lights a pan of charcoal, and seating himself at his writingdesk, begins to unburthen his heart of its sorrow, in the tragic eloquence of one for whom such sorrow is insupportable. The poor boy has been refused the hand of the girl he loves, and believing that without her life would be worthless, he has resolved on suicide. As his pen hurries over the paper, the vapour from the burning charcoal fills the room. His pulses throb, his head is hot, his breathing oppressed. The candle is beginning to burn dimly, and its flame lengthens. He is unable to continue. He walks languidly up and down the room, and finally crawls to the bed. Life slowly ebbs. On the following morning, when his door is burst open, a corpse is stretched upon the bed.

A few hours later, she whom he loved, and who loves him, hears of this rash act, which annihilates even hope. In her despair she flings herself into the dark and sullen Seine. The next morning a corpse is exposed at the dreadful Morgue. The casual spectator gazes on it with undefinable awe, as he thinks of the stillness of that wondrous organism, which but a few hours before was so buoyant with life. Where is all that mystery now? The body is there, the form is there, the wondrous structure is there, but where is its activity? Gone are the graceful movements of those limbs, and the tender sweetness of those eyes; gone the rosy glow of youth, and the soft eagerness of womanly grace; gone the music of that voice, and the gaiety of that heart. The mystery of Life has given place to the mystery of Death.

What has thus suddenly arrested the wondrous mechanism, and, in the place of two palpitating, vigorous beings, left two silent corpses? The cause seems so trifling that we can only marvel at its importance, when

revealed in the effect; it was the same in both cases, in spite of the difference of the means: that which killed the one, killed the other; the fumes from the charcoal pan, and the rushing waters of the Seine, interrupted the exchange of a small quantity of gases, and by preventing the blood from getting rid of its carbonic acid, in exchange for an equivalent of oxygen, the fervid wheels of life were suddenly arrested. It is the same cause, acting with milder force, which makes the faces pale of those who issue from a crowded church, and gives a languor to those who have sat for some hours in a theatre, concert-room, or any other ill-ventilated apartment, in which human beings have been exhaling carbonic acid from their lungs. A breath of fresh air quickly restores them, and after breathing this fresh air, during a walk home, they scarcely feel any evil results of the late partial suffocation. Had the young man's door been burst open, and fresh air admitted to his room, or had the girl been rescued from the river, and made to breathe within a few minutes after her plunge, both would have been finally restored, as our concertgoers are restored; and the concertgoers, if kept much longer in that ill-ventilated room, would have perished, as the lovers perished.

Among the earliest experiences of mankind must have been the necessity of fresh air for the continuance of life; but the complete explanation of the fact, in all its details, is a scientific problem, the solution of which only began to be possible when Priestley discovered the gases of which the air is composed, and the relation these bear to the organism; nor is the problem even now entirely solved, in spite of the labours of so many illustrious men. We have learned much, and learned it accurately; but the difficulties which still baffle us are many and considerable. The ancients really knew nothing of this subject; nor did the men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries lay any solid foundation-stone. That