"Miss Ida--before I met you, I never feared to speak what was in my thoughts. Policy or compassion may have deterred me--but cowardice never! I believed I had read every page in man's or woman's heart, and could flutter them with a breath. You were a study, taken up in curiosity, and baffling me by its very simplicity. You furnished me with a clue; but my skepticism cast it aside--to seek it again, and admit its efficacy in a solitary instance. Ingenuous in word and deed--you had yet, a hidden history. I felt it then, vaguely--not able to tell from whence the consciousness sprung. Can it be that virtue thrives only in the shade?" He stopped again. Ida's face was crimsoning slowly with confusion and suspense. "It _must_ be said!" resumed he, desperately. "I may probe a wound, or touch a callous heart. Miss Ross! will you state to me candidly, the character of your acquaintance with Mr. Lacy?" Ida's tongue was palsied. She would have given her estate for power to say--"He was my friend;" but it was denied. "Then bear with me awhile. The evening of our introduction, I imparted to you the information of Lelia Arnold's engagement; and your deprecation of her trifling seemed only the detestation of a pure and upright soul. If I saw mournful pity in the eyes, which were often riveted by her beauty, I suspected no more. Before leaving Richmond, I heard that he had been--perhaps was then your lover:--the direction of your preference was not known. In my superior sagacity, I opined that my friend Germaine was his fortunate rival. Your rejection of his suit recalled the gossip I had not thought worth remembering. Lelia was Helen's confidante; knew of her betrothal to Ashlin, and surmised, if she was not informed of the rupture, when it occurred. After Mr. Read's death, my mother mentioned incidentally, that her influence had been exerted to the utmost, to persuade her friend to accept him. Until I heard that, I had laughed at her snares to entangle me--the only man, it was said, who was invulnerable to her arts. I despised her before, I hated her now; yet the county rung with acclamations over my capture; and the fair Lelia, in her exultation, was beguiled into an impolitic show of tenderness. I have her picture, her ring, her letters. I could dash them into the sea, without a pang, and would plunge after them, sooner than marry her. I designed a punishment for her falsehood in friendship and love; but all the while, was haunted with an indefinite thought that you were to be affected by the result. If your lover had been wiled away by her machinations, or more likely--if she had played upon his imagination and sense of honor, in an unguarded hour--I could free him. I intended to see you, and tell you this, but Helen hastened the execution of the plot. Breaking our accustomed reserve, she implored me to quiet her fears touching my marriage. A glimmering of Leila's treachery had penetrated her mind;--she mistrusted that she