by my stupid impetuosity. I looked. Her chair was vacant: so was the room. But at that moment someone opened the outer door, and a voice--her voice--said,--

`Come out--I want to see the moon, and breathe the evening air: they will do me good--if anything will.'

Here, then, were she and Rachel coming to take a walk in the garden. I wished myself safe back over the wall. I stood, however, in the shadow of the tall holly bush, which, standing between the window and the porch, at present screened me from observation, but did not prevent me from seeing two figures come forth into the moonlight; Mrs Graham followed by another--not Rachel, but a young man, slender and rather tall. Oh heavens, how my temples throbbed! Intense anxiety darkened my sight; but I thought-- yes, and the voice confirmed it--it was Mr Lawrence.

`You should not let it worry you so much, Helen,' said he; `I will be more cautious in future; and in time--`'

I did not hear the rest of the sentence; for he walked close beside her and spoke so gently that I could not catch the words. My heart was splitting with hatred; but I listened intently for her reply. I heard it plainly enough.

`But I must leave this place, Frederick,' she said--`I never can be happy here,--nor anywhere else, indeed,' she added, with mirthless laugh,--`but I cannot rest here.'

`But where could you find a better place?' replied he,--`so secluded--so near me, if you think anything of that.'

`Yes,' interrupted she, `it is all I could wish, if they could only have left me alone.'

`But wherever you go, Helen, there will be the same sources of annoyance. I cannot consent to lose you: I must go with you, or come to you; and there are meddling fools elsewhere, as will as here.'

While thus conversing, they had sauntered slowly past me down the walk, and I heard no more of their discourse; but I saw him put his arm round her waist, while she lovingly rested her hand on his shoulder;-- and then, a tremulous darkness obscured my sight, my heart sickened and my head burned like fire, I half rushed, half staggered from the spot where horror had kept me rooted, and leaped or tumbled over the wall--I hardly know which--but I know that, afterwards, like a passionate child, I dashed myself on the ground and lay there in a paroxysm of anger and despair--how long, I cannot undertake to say; but it must have been a considerable time; for when, having partially relieved myself by a torrent of tears, and looked up at the moon, shining so calmly and carelessly on, as little influenced by my misery as I was by its peaceful radiance, and earnestly prayed for death or forgetfulness, I had risen and journeyed homewards--little regarding the way, but carried instinctively by my feet to the door, I found it bolted against me, and everyone in bed except my mother, who hastened to answer my impatient knocking, and received me with a shower of questions and rebukes:--

`Oh, Gilbert, how could you do so? Where have you been? Do come in and take your supper--I've got it all ready, though you don't deserve it for keeping me in such a fright after the strange manner you left the house this evening. Mr Millward was quite--Bless the boy! how ill he looks! Oh, gracious! what is the matter?'

`Nothing, nothing--give me a candle.'

`But won't you take some supper?'

`No, I want to go to bed,' said I, taking a candle and lighting it at the one she held in her hand.

`Oh, Gilbert, how you tremble!' exclaimed my anxious parent.

`How white you look!--Do tell me what it is? Has anything happened?'