“I did not know at the time so well as I now do, how much of the interest I had excited in her heart depended on the mystery of my life. The stray hints I now and then dropped--the stories into which I was occasionally led--the wild scenes and wilder adventures, in which I bore my part--had done more than stimulate her curiosity concerning me. This, I repeat, I knew not at the the time, and the secret of my career weighed like a crime upon my conscience. I hesitated long whether I should not disclose every circumstance of my life, and, by the avowal of my utter un-worthiness, repair, as far as might be, the injury I had done her. Then came that fatal ‘_amour-propre_’ that involved me originally in the pursuit, and I was silent. We had not been many minutes thus, when a servant came from the house to inform Miss Blundell that her cousin, Captain Douglas, had arrived. As she nodded her head in reply, I perceived the colour mounted to her cheek, and an expression of agitation passed over her features. “‘Who is Captain Douglas?’ said I, without, however, venturing to look more fully at her. “‘Oh! a cousin, a second or third cousin, I believe; but a great friend of Harvey’s.’ “‘And of his sister’s too, if I might presume so far?’ “‘Quite wrong for once,’ said she, with an effort to seem at ease: ‘he’s not the least a favourite of mine, although----’ “‘_You_ are of his!’ I added quickly. ‘Well, well, I really beg pardon for this boldness of mine.’ How I was about to continue, I know not, when her brother’s voice, calling her aloud, broke off all further conversation. “‘Come, Fanny,’ said he, ‘here’s Harry Douglas, just come with all the London gossip--he’s been to Windsor too, and has been dining with the Prince. O’Kelly, you must know Douglas, you are just the men to suit each other.--He’s got a heavy book on the Derby, and will be delighted to have a chat with you about the turf. “As I followed Miss Blundell into the drawing-room, my heart was heavy and depressed. “Few of the misfortunes in life come on us without foreboding. The clouds that usher in the storm, cast their shadows on the earth before they break; and so it is with our fate. A gloomy sense of coming evil, presages the blow about to fall, and he who would not be stunned by the stroke, must not neglect the warning. “The room was full of people--the ordinary buzz and chit-chat of an evening-party was going forward, and an hundred pleasant projects were forming for the next day’s amusement, among which, I heard my name bandied about, on every side. “‘O’Kelly will arrange this,’ cried one--‘leave it all to O’Kelly--he must decide it;’ and so on, when suddenly Blundell called out-- “‘O’Kelly, come up here,’ and then taking me by the arm, he led me to the end of the room, where with his back turned towards us, a tall fashionable-looking man was talking to his sister.