hast robbed me of a treasure whose value thou canst never know? for her love was mine alone ere thou camest between us, and by base arts and cruel force compelled her to be thine. Ha! wouldst thou avoid me? refuse to cross my sword! Draw, or I will proclaim thee coward in the face of the whole world !" With a faint cry, Marie had thrown herself between them; but strength failed with the effort, and she would have fallen had not Morales upheld her with his left arm. But she had not fainted; every sense felt wrung into unnatural acuteness Except to support her, Morales had made no movement; his tall figure was raised to its fullest height, and his right arm calmly uplifted as his sole protection against Arthur. "Put up your sword," he said firmly, and fixing his large dark eyes upon his irritated adversary, with a gaze far more of sorrow than of anger, "I will not fight thee. Proclaim me what thou wilt. I fear neither thy sword nor thee. Go hence, unhappy boy; when this chafed mood is past, thou wilt repent this rashness, and perchance find it harder to forgive thyself than I shall to forgive thee. Go; thou art over-wrought. We are not equals now. Stanley involuntarily dropped the point of his sword. "I obey thee," he said, in that deep concentrated tone, which betrays strong passion yet more than violent words; "obey thee, because I would not strike an undefended foe; but we shall meet again in a more fitting place and season. Till then, hear me, Don Ferdinand! We have hitherto been as companions in arms, and as friends, absent or together; from this moment the tie is broken, and for ever. I am thy fee! one who hath sworn to take thy life, or lose his own. I will compel thee to meet me! Ay, shouldst thou shun me, to the confines of the world I will track and find thee. Coward and spy! And yet men think thee noble !" A bitter laugh of scorn concluded these fatal words. He returned his sword violently to its sheath; the tread of his armed heel was heard for a few seconds, and then all was silent. Morales neither moved nor spoke, and Marie lifted her head to look on his face in terror. The angry words of Arthur had evidently fallen either wholly unheeded, or perhaps unheard. There was but one feeling expressed on those a chiseled features, but one thought, but one conviction low, convulsive sob broke from her, and she fainted in his arms. CHAPTER XIII. "Why, when my life on that one hope. cast, BULWER. "Oh leave me not! or know Before thou goest, the heart that wronged thee so But wrongs no more. BULWER. In the first painful moments of awakening sense, Marie was only conscious of an undefined yet heavy weight on heart and brain; but as strength returned she started up with a faint cry, and looked wildly round her. The absence of Morales, the conviction that he had left her to the care of others, that for the first time he had deserted her couch of pain, lighted up as by an electric flash the marvellous links of memory, and the whole of that morning's anguish, every word spoken, every feeling endured, rushed back upon her with such overwhelming force as for the moment to deprive her of the little strength she had regained. Why could she not die? was the despairing thought that followed. What had she to live for, when it was her ill fate to wreck the happiness of all who loved her? and yet in that moment of agony she never seemed to have loved her husband more. It was of him she thought far more than of Arthur, whose angry words and fatal threat rung again and again in her ears. "My Lord had only just left when you recovered consciousness, Senora," gently remarked her principal attendant, whose penetration had discovered the meaning of Marie's imploring look and passive silence, so far at least that it was Don Ferdinand she sought, and that his absence pained her. "He tarried till life seemed returning, and then reluctantly departed for the castle, where he had been summoned, he said, above an hour before." "To the castle!" repeated Marie internally. "Ay, ho will do his duty, though his heart be breaking. He will take his place and act his part, and men will report him calm, wise, collected, active as his wont, and little dream his wife, his treasured wife, has bowed his lofty spirit to the dust, and laid low his light of home. Tell me when he returns," she said aloud, "and bid all leave me but yourself." Two hours passed, and Marie lay outwardly still and calm, neither speaking nor employed. But at the end of that time she started up hastily, resumed the robe which had been cast aside, and remained standing, as intently listening to some distant sound. Several minutes elapsed, and though she had sunk almost unconsciously on the seat Manuella proffered, it was not till full half an hour that she spoke. "The Senor has returned," she said calmly; "bid Alberic hither.' The page came, and she quietly inquired if any strangers had entered with his master. "No, Senora, he is alone." "Has he long returned?" "Almost half an hour, Senora. He went directly to his closet, desiring that he might not be disturbed." Ten minutes more, and Marie was standing in her husband's presence, but unobserved. For the first time in his whole life had her light step approached him unheard. For two hours he had borne a degree of mental suffering which would either have crushed or roused any other man into wildest fury-borne it with such an unflinching spirit, that in neither look nor manner, nor even tone, had he departed from his usual self, or given the slightest occasion for remark. But the privacy of his closet obtained, the mighty will gave way, and the stormy waves rolled over him, deadening every sense and thought and feeling, save the one absorbing truth, that he had never been beloved. Father and child had deceived him; for now every little word, every trifling occurrence before his marriage in the Vale of Cedars rushed back on his mind, and Henriquez imploring entreaty under all circumstances to love and cherish her was explained. "Ferdinand!" exclaimed a voice almost inarticulate from sobs; and starting, he beheld his wife kneeling by his side. "Oh! my husband, do not turn from me, do not hate me. I have none but thee." He tried to withdraw his hand, but the words, the tone, unmanned him, and throwing his arm round her, he clasped her convulsively to his heart, and she felt his slow scalding tears fall one by one, as wrung from the heart's innermost depths, upon her cheek. For several minutes there was silence. The strong man's emotion is as terrible to witness as terrible to feel. Marie was the first to regain voice; and in low beseeching accents she implored him to listen to her—to hear ere he condemned. "Not thus," was his sole reply, as he tried to raise her from her kneeling posture to the cushion by his side. "Yes, thus my husband. I will not rise till thou say'st thou canst forgive; wilt take the loving and the weak back to thy heart, if not to love as thou hast loved, to strengthen and forgive. I have not wronged thee. Were I false in word or thought I would not kneel to ask forgiveness, but crawl to thy feet and die! If thou couldst but know the many, many times I have longed to confess all; the agony to receive thy fond caress, thy trusting confidence, and know myself deceiving; the terror lest thou shouldst discover aught from other than myself; oh! were it not for thy deep woe, I could bless this moment, bidding me speak Truth once more !" "And say thou hast never loved me? Wert true from duty, not from love? Marie, can I bear this?" "Yes-for I do love thee. Oh! my husband, I turn to thee alone, under my God, for rest and peace. If I might not give thee the wild passions of my youth, when my heart was sought, and won ere I was myself conscious of the precipice I neared, I cling to thee now alone-I would be thine alone. Oh, take me to thy heart, and let me lie there. Ferdinand, Ferdinand forgive me!-love-save me from myself!" "Ay, now and ever! Come to my heart, beloved one!" answered her husband, rousing himself from all of personal suffering to comfort her; and he drew her to him till her head rested on his bosom. "Now tell me thy sorrowing tale, to me so wrapt in mystery. Fear not from me. It is enough thou clingest to me in such sweet guileless confidence still." She obeyed him; and the heavy weight of suffering years semed lightening as she spoke. From her first meeting Arthur, to that morning's harrowing interview, every feeling, every incident, every throb of reproach and dread were revealed with such touching and childlike truth, that even in his suffering, Morales unconsciously clasped his wife closer and closer to him, as if her very confidence and truth rendered her yet dearer than before, and inexpressibly soothed at the very moment that they pained. Their interview was long, but fraught with mutual comfort. Morales had believed, when he entered his closet that day, that a dense cloud was folded round him, sapping the very elements of life; but though he still felt as if he had received some heavy physical blow, the darkness had fled from his spirit, and light dawned anew for both, beneath the heavenly rays of openness and Truth. "And Arthur?" Marie said, as that long commune came to a close; and she looked up with the fearless gaze of integrity in her husband's face. "Thou wilt forgive him, Ferdinand? he knew not what he said." "Trust me, beloved one. I pity and forgive him. He shall learn to love me, despite himself.” Great was the astonishment and terrible the disappoint ment of Don Luis Garcia at the visible failure of one portion of his nefarious schemes. Though seldom in Don Ferdinand's actual presence, he was perfectly aware that instead of diminishing, Morales' confidence in and love for his wife had both increased, and that Marie was happier and more quietly at rest than she had been since her marriage. But though baffled, Garcia was not foiled. The calm, haughty dignity which, whenever they did chance to meet, now characterized Don Ferdinand's manner towards him; the brief, stern reply, if words were actually needed; or complete silence, betraying as it did the utter contempt and scorn with which his crafty design was regarded, heightened his every revengeful feeling, and hastened on his plans. Two or three weeks passed: a calm security and peaceful happiness had taken the place of storm and dread in Marie's heart. She felt that it had been a secret consciousness of wrong towards her husband, the dread of discovery occasioning estrangement, the constant fear of encountering |