"I go to-day to the shelter of the Catholic Church. I had long thought to return to this refuge, though I had hoped to wait until the day your happiness with Greta was complete. That, in Heaven's purposes, was not to be, and I must leave you without a last farewell. Good-bye, dear son, and God bless and guide you. If you love me, do not grieve for me. It is from love of you I leave you. Think of me as one who is at peace, and I will bless you even in heaven. If ever the world should mock you with your mother's name, remember that she is your mother still, and that she loved you to the last. Good-bye, dear Paul; you may never know the day when this erring and sorrowing heart will be allowed, in His infinite pity, to join the choirs above. Then, dearest, from the hour when you read this letter, think of me as dead, for I shall be dead to the world." Paul held the letter before him, and looked at it long with vacant eyes. Feeling itself seemed gone. Not a tear came from him, not a sigh, not one moan of an overwrought heart escaped him. All was blind, pulseless torpor. He stood there crushed and overwhelmed, a shaken, shattered man. A thousand horrors congealed within him to one deep, dead stupor. He turned away in silence, and walked out of the house. The empty chambers seemed, as he went, to echo his heavy footsteps. He took the road back toward the vicarage, turning neither to the right nor the left, looking straight before him, and never once shifting his gaze. The road might be long, but now it fretted him no more. The night might be cold, but colder far was the heart within him. The moon might fly behind the cloud floes, and her light burst forth afresh; but for him all was blank night. In the vicarage the slumberous fire was smoldering down. The straggle-brained guest had been lighted to his bed, and the good parson himself was carrying to his own tranquil closet a head full of the great world's dust and noise. Greta was still sitting before the dying fire, her heart heavy with an indefinable sensation of dread. When Paul opened the door his face was very pale and his eyes had a strange look; but he was calm, and spoke quietly. He told what had occurred, and read aloud his mother's letter. The voice was strong in which he read it, and never a tremor told of the agony his soul was suffering. Then he sat some time without speaking, and time itself had no reckoning. Greta scarcely spoke, and the old parson said little. What power had words to express a sorrow like this? Death had its solace; but there was no comfort for death in life. At last Paul told Parson Christian that he wished the marriage to take place at once--- to-morrow, or, at latest, the day after that. He told of their intention to leave England, of his father's friend, and, in answer to questions, of the power of attorney drawn up in the name of his brother.