eral move towards the door: carriages are "You were irritated because I told you I being called, and it is time to go away, the was about to leave Vienna. You have departure of the guests being somewhat ac- avoided me the whole evening, and left me celerated by the important news which has to be bored and annoyed by that wearisome just been made public. Victor is still linger- tribe of diplomatists, with their flat witticisms ing on the staircase. Many a bright eye and their eternal politics. Why did you looks wistfully on his handsome form, many not stay to hear me out? Victor, it is true, a soft heart would willingly waken an inter- I go to-morrow, but I go to the Waldenberg.' est in the charming young Count de Rohan, How changed his face was now; his eye but the Hungarian has caught the malady in sparkled and his whole countenance lightened its deadliest form-the "love fever," as his up. He looked like a different man. He own poets term it, is wasting his heart to could only press the arm that clung to his the core, and for him, alas! there is but one own; he could not speak. woman on earth, and she is coming downstairs at this moment, attended by the best-ceeded the Princess in a playful, half-malidressed and best-looking attaché of the French Legation.

Somewhat to this young gentleman's disgust, she sends him to look for her carriage, and taking Victor's arm, which he is too proud to offer, she bids him lead her to the cloak-room, and shawl her as he used to do with such tender care.

He relents at once. What is there in this woman that she can thus turn and twist him at her will? She likes him best thus When he is haughty and rebellious, and she fears that at last she may have driven him too far and have lost him altogether, the uncertainty creates an interest and excitement, which is pleasure akin to pain, but it is so delightful to win him back again,-such a triumph to own him and tyrannize over him once more! It is at moments of reconciliation such as these that the Princess vindicates her woman-nature, and becomes a very woman to the heart.

"You are angry with me, Victor," she whispers, leaning heavily on his arm, and looking downwards as she speaks; "angry with me, and without a cause. You would not listen to me an hour ago, you were so cross and impatient. Will you listen to me now?" The tears were standing in the strong man's eyes, "Speak on," he said; "you do with me what you like, I could listen to you forever."

"Will you continue to bouder me?" pro

cious tone; "or will you forgive me and be friends for that which is, after all, your own fault? Oh, you men! how hasty and violent you are; it is lucky we are so patient and so good tempered. The Waldenberg is not so very far from Edeldorf. You might ask me there for your jour de fête. I have not forgotten it, you see. Not a word more, Count de Rohan; I must leave you now. Here is my carriage. Adieu,-no, not adieu, mon ami, au revoir!"

Why was it such a different world to Victor from what it had been ten short minutes ago, from what it would assuredly be the next time they met, and her caprice and coquetterie were again exhibited to drive him wild? Was it worth all these days of uncertainty and anxious longing; all these fits of jealousy and agonies of self-reproach; to be deliriously happy every now and then for a short ten minutes? Was any woman on earth worthy of all that Victor de Rohan sacrificed for the indulgence of his guilty love? Probably not, but it would have been hard to convince him. He was not as wise as Solomon; yet Solomon, with all his wisdom, seems to have delivered himself up a willing captive to disgrace and bondage-fettered by a pair of white arms-held by a thread of silken hair. Oh, vanity of vanities! “this is also vanity and vexation of spirit."

CHAPTER XLII.-" TOO LATE."

FOR a wounded campaigner on crutches, dow; it is life itself to inhale the invigorator a wasted convalescent slowly recovering ing breeze that sweeps down, unchecked and from an attack of Crimean fever, there are uncontaminate, from the Black Sea; it is few better places for the re-establishment of inspiriting to gaze upon the gorgeous beauty health than the hotel at Therapia. It is re- of the Asiatic coast, another continent not a freshing to hear the ripple of the Bosphorus mile away. And then the smaller accessories not ten feet distant from one's bed-room win- of comfortable apartments, good dinners,

civilized luxuries, and European society, form | hath been, and the eternity which shall be? no unwelcome contrast to the Crimean tent, Oh! to lie down and rest, and look back the soldiers rations, and the wearisome routine of daily and hourly duty.

upon the day's hard labor, and feel that something has been wrought—that something has been won! and so to sleep-happy here

But a few days after the taking of Sebastopol, I was once more in Turkey. Ropsley, the man of iron nerves and strong will-the man whom danger had spared, and sickness had hitherto passed by, was struck down by fever that wasting, paralyzing disease so common to our countrymen in an Eastern climate, and was so reduced and helpless as to be utterly incapable of moving without assistance. He had many friends, for Ropsley was popular in his regiment and respected throughout the army; but none were so thoroughly disengaged as I; it seemed as if I could now be of little use in any capacity, and to my lot it fell to place my old schoolfellow on board ship, and accompany him to Therapia, en route for England on sick leave. My own affairs, too, required that I should re-visit Somersetshire before long. The wreck of my father's property, well nursed and taken care of by a prudent man of business, had increased to no contemptible provision for a nameless child. If I choose to return to England, I should find myself a landed proprietor of no inconsiderable means should be enabled to assume a position such as many a man now fighting his way in the world would esteem the acme of human felicity, and for me it would be but dust and ashes! What cared I for broad acres, local influence, good investments, and county respectability-all the outward show and empty shadows for which people are so apt to sacrifice the real blessings of life? What was it to me that I might look round from my own dining-room on my own domain, with my own tenants waiting to see me in the hall? An empty heart can have no possessions; a broken spirit is but a beggar in the midst of wealth, whilst the whole universe, with all its glories, belongs alone to him who is at peace with himself. I often think how many a man there is who lives out his threescore years and ten, and never knows what real life is, after all. A boyhood passed in vain aspirations-a manhood spent in strug-sion of heart-sick longing that it pained me gling for the impossible-an old age wasted in futile repinings, such is the use made by how many of our fellow creatures of that glorious streak of light which we call existence, that intervenes between the eternity which

happy for evermore. Well, on some natures happiness smiles even here on earthGod forbid it should be otherwise!—and some must content themselves with duty instead. Who knows which shall have the best of it when all is over? For me, it was plain at this period that I must do my devoir, and leave all to Time, the great restorer in the moral, as he is the great destroyer in the physical, world. The years of excitement (none know how strong) that I had lately passed, followed by a listless, hopeless inactivity, had produced a re-action on my spirits which it was necessary to conquer and shake off. I resolved to return to England, to set my house in order to do all the good in my power, and first of all, strenuously to commence with that which lay nearest my hand, although it was but the humble task of nursing my old schoolfellow through an attack of low fever.

My patient possessed one of those strong and yet elastic natures which even sickness seems unable thoroughly to subdue. The Ropsley on a couch of suffering and lassitude was the same Ropsley that confronted the enemy's fire so coolly in the Crimea, and sneered at the follies of his friends so sarcastically in St. James'-street. Ill as he was, and utterly prostrated in body, he was clearheaded and ready-witted as ever. With the help of a wretchedly bad grammar he was rapidly picking up Turkish, by no means an easy language for a beginner; and taking advantage of my society, was actually entering upon the rudiments of Hungarian, a tongue which it is next to impossible for any one to acquire who has not spoken it, as I had done in earliest childhood. He was good-humored and patient, too, far more than I should have expected, and was never anxious or irritable, save about his letters. I have seen him, however, turn away from a negative to the eager inquiry" any letters for me," with an expres

to witness on that usually haughty and somewhat sneering countenance.

But it came at last. Not many mornings after our arrival at Therapia there was a letter for Ropsley, which seemed to afford him

unconcealed satisfaction, and from that day | the Guardsman mended rapidly, and began to talk of getting up and packing his things, and starting westward once more.

So it came to pass that, with the help of his servant, I got him out of bed and dressed him, and laid him on the sofa at the open window, where he could see the light caïques dancing gaily on the waters, and the restless sea-fowl flitting eternally to and fro, and could hear the shouts of the Turkish boatmen, adjuring each other, very unnecessarily, not to be too hasty; and the discordant cries of the Greek population scolding, and cheating, and vociferating on the quay.

I felt I was trembling all over, I covered my face with my hands and turned away, but I bade him go on.

"Her father was never averse to you from the first. He liked you, Vere, personally and still more for the sake of your father, his old friend. There was but one objection.

need not dwell upon it; and even that he could have got over, for he was most anxious to see his daughter married, and to one with whom he could have made his own terms. He was an unscrupulous man, Sir Harry, and dreadfully pressed for money. When in that predicament people will do things that at other times they would be We talked of Hungary. I loved to talk ashamed of, as I know too well. And the of it now, for was it not her country of whom girl too, Vere, she loved you-I am sure of I must think no more? And Ropsley's man-it-she loved you, poor girl, with all her ner was kinder, and his voice softer, than I heart and soul." had ever thought it before. Poor fellow! he was weak with his illness, perhaps, but hitherto I had remarked no alteration in his cold, impassible demeanor.

I looked him straight in the face-" Not a word of her, Ropsley, as you are a gentleman!" I said. O, the agony of that moment! and yet it was not all pain.

"Well," he proceeded, "Sir Harry consulted me about the match. You know how intimate we were, you know what confidence he had in my judgment. If I had been generous and honorable, if I had been such a

At last he took my hand, and in a hollow voice he said " Vere, you have returned me good for evil. You have behaved to me like a brother. Vere, I believe you really are a Christian!" "I hope so," I replied quietly, for what man as you, Vere, how much happier we had I but that?

"Yes," he resumed, "but I don't mean conventionally, because your godfathers and godmothers at your baptism said you were -I mean really. I don't believe there is a particle of humbug about you. Can you forgive your enemies?"

"I have already told you so," I answered; "don't you remember that night in the trenches? besides, Ropsley, I shall never consider you my enemy."

should all be now; but no, I had my own ends in view, and I determined to work out my own purpose, without looking to the right or left, without turning aside for friend or foe. Besides, I hardly knew you then, Vere. I did not appreciate your good qualities. I did not know your courage, and constancy, and patience, and kindliness. I did not know yours was just the clinging, womanly nature, that would never get over the crushing of its best affections—and I know it now too well. O, Vere, you never can forgive me. And yet," he added, musingly, more to himself than to me," and yet, even had I known all this, had you been my own brother, I fear my nature was then so hard, so pitiless, so uncompromising, that I should have gone straight on towards my aim, and blasted your happiness without scruple or remorse. Remorse," and the old look came over him, the old sneering look, that wreathed those handsome features in the wicked smile

"That is exactly what cuts me to the heart," he replied, flushing up over his wan, wasted face. "I have injured you more deeply than any one on earth, and I have received nothing but kindness in return. Often and often I have longed to tell you all-how I had wronged you, and how I had repented, but my pride forbade me till to-day. It is dreadful to think that I might have died and never confessed to you how hard and how unfeeling I have been. Listen to me, and then forgive me if you can. O! Vere, of a fallen angel-"if a man means to Vere, had it not been for me and my selfish-repent of what he has done, he had better ness, you might have married Constance not do it. My maxim has always been, Beverley!" never look back,'—' vestigia nulla retror

sum,' and yet to-day I cannot help retrac- as a settled affair. Then I tried all my ing, aye, and bitterly regretting, the past.

powers upon the young lady, and there, I "I have told you I had my own ends in confess to you freely, Vere, I was completely view, I wished to marry the heiress myself. foiled. She never liked me even as an acNot that I loved her, Vere-do not be angry quaintance, and she took no pains to conceal with me for the confession, I never loved her her aversion. How angry she used to make the least in the world. She was far to placid, me sometimes!—I hated her so, that I longed too conventional, too like other girls, to make to make her mine, if it were only to humble the slightest impression on me. My ideal of her, as much as if I had loved her with all a woman is, a bold strong nature, a keen my heart and soul. Many a time I used to intellect, a daring mind, and a dazzling grind my teeth and mutter to myself, Ah! beauty that others must fall down and wor- my fair enemy, I shall live to make you rue ship. I never was one of your sentimental- this treatment;', and I swore a great oath ists. A violet may be a very pretty flower, that, come what might, she should never be and smell very sweet, but I like a camellia long to Vere Egerton. I even tried to create best, and all the better because you require a an interest in her mind for Victor de Rohan, hot-house to raise it in. But, if I did not but the girl was as true as steel. I have care for Miss Beverley, I cared a good deal been accustomed to read characters all my for Beverley Manor, and I resolved that, life, women's as well as men's, it is part of come what might, Beverley Manor should my profession;" and Ropsley laughed once one day be mine. The young lady I looked upon as an encumbrance that must necessarily accompany the estate. You know how intimate I became with her father, you know the trust he reposed in me, and the habit into which he fell, of doing nothing without my advice. That trust, I now acknowledge to you, I abused shamefully; of that habit I took advantage, solely to further my own ends, totally irrespective of my friend. He confided to me in very early days his intention of marrying his daughter to the son of his old friend. He talked it over with me as a scheme on which he had set his heart, and, above all, insisted on the advantage to himself of making, as he called it, his own terms with you about settlements, &c. I have already told you he was involved in difficulties, from which his daughter's marriage could alone free him, with the consent of her husband. I need not enter into particulars. I have the deeds and law-papers at my finger's end, for I like to understand a business thoroughly if I embark on it at all, but it is no question of such matters now. Well, Vere, at first I was too prudent to object overtly to the plan. Sir Harry, as you know, was an obstinate, wilful man, and such a course would have been the one of all others most calculated to wed him more firmly than ever to his original intention; but I weighed the matter carefully with him day by day, now bringing forward arguments in favor of it, now startling objections, till I had insensibly accustomed him to consider it by no means

more his bitter laugh, "and many a trifling incident showed me that Constance Beverley cared for nobody on earth but you. This only made me more determined not to be beat; and little by little, with hints here and whispers there, assisted by your own strange, solitary habits, and the history of your poor father's life and death, I persuaded Sir Harry that there was madness in your family, and that you had inherited the curse. From the day on which he became convinced of this, I felt I had won my race. No power on earth would then have induced him to let you marry his daughter, and the excuse which he made you on that memorable afternoon, when you had so gallantly rescued her from death, was but a gentlemanlike way of getting out of his difficulty about telling you the real truth. Vere, that girl's courage is wonderful. She came down to dinner that night with the air of an Empress, but with a face like marble, and a dull stony look in her eyes that made even me almost rue what I had done. She kept her room for a fortnight afterwards, and I cannot help feeling she has never looked as bright since.

"When you went away I acknowledge I thought the field was my own. In consideration of my almost ruining myself to preserve him from shame, Sir Harry promised me his daughter if I could win her consent, and you may depend upon it I tried hard to do so. It was all in vain; the girl hated me more and more, and when we all met so unexpectedly in Vienna, I saw that my chance

of Beverley Manor was indeed a hopeless | progress of his attachment to Valèrie-at one. Sir Harry, too, was getting very infirm. which I had already partly guessed—acknowlHad he died before his daughter's marriage, edged how, for a long time, he had imagined his bills for the money I had lent him were that I was again a favored rival, destined ever not worth the stamps on which they were to stand in his way; how my sudden departdrawn. My only chance was her speedy ure from Vienna and her incomprehensible union with some one rich enough to make indifference to that hasty retreat had led him the necessary sacrifices, and again I picked to believe that she had entertained nothing out Victor de Rohan as the man. We all but a girl's passing inclination for her brother's 'thought then you were engaged to his sister, comrade; and how, before he reached his Valèrie." regiment in the Crimea, she had promised to

Ropsley blushed scarlet as he mentioned be his on the conclusion of the war. that name.

"And it was not my part to conceal the surmise from Miss Beverley. She was so glad, she was so thankful,' she said, 'she was so happy, for Vere's sake:' and a month afterwards she was Countess de Rohan, with the handsomest husband and the finest place in Hungary. It was a mariage de convenance, I fear, on both sides. I know now what I allow I did not dream of then, that Victor himself was the victim of an unfortunate attachment at the time, and that he married the beautiful Miss Beverley out of pique. Sir Harry died, as you know, within three months. I have saved myself from ruin, and I have destroyed the happiness on earth of three people that never did me the slightest harm. Vere, I do not deserve to be forgiven, I do not deserve ever to rise again from this couch; and yet there is one for whose sake I would fain get well-one whom I must see yet again before I die."

He burst into tears as he spoke. Good heaven! this man was mortal after all-an erring, sinful mortal, like the rest of us, with broken pride, heartfelt repentance, thrilling hopes, and agonizing fears. Another bruised reed, though he had stood so defiant and erect, confronting the whirlwind and the thunderbolt, but shivered up, and cowering at the whisper of the "still small voice." Poor fellow poor Ropsley! I pitied him from my heart, while he hid his face in his hands, and the big tears forced themselves through his wasted fingers; freely I forgave him, and freely I told him so.

After a time he became more composed, and then, as if ashamed of his weakness, assumed once more the cold satirical manner, half-sarcasm, half-pleasantry, which has become the conventional disguise of the world in which such men as Ropsley delight to live. Little by little he confided to me the rise and

"I

never cared for any other woman on earth," said Ropsley, once more relapsing into the broken accents of real, deep feeling. "I never reflected till I knew her what a life mine has been. God forgive me, Vere; if we had met earlier, I should have been a different man. I have received a letter from her today. I shall be well enough to move by the end of the week. Vere, I must go through Hungary, and stop at Edeldorf on my way to England!"

As I walked out to inhale the evening breeze and indulge my own thoughts in solitude by the margin of the peaceful Bosphorus, I felt almost stunned, like a man who has sustained a severe fall, or one who wakes suddenly from an astounding dream. And yet I might have guessed long ago at the purport of Ropsley's late revelations. Diffident as I was of my own merits, there had been times when my heart told me, with a voice there was no disputing, that I was beloved by Constance Beverley; and now it was with something like a feeling of relief and exhilaration that I recalled the assurance of that fact from one himself so interested and so difficult to deceive as Ropsley. "And she loved me all along," I thought, with a thrill of pleasure, sadly dashed with pain. was true and pure, as I always thought her; and even now, though she is wedded to another, though she never can be mine on earth, perhaps " And here I stopped, for the cold, sickening impossibility chilled me to. the marrow, and an insurmountable barrier seemed to rise up around me and hem me in on every side. It was sin to love her, it was sin to think of her now. O! misery! misery! and yet I would give my life to see her once more! So my good angel whispered in my ear, "You must never look on her again; for the rest of your time you must tread the weary path alone, and learn to be kindly,

"She