“Christian,” cried Halbert vehemently, “I feel assured it is the same. Do not tell me what he pretends to be, if he has any end to serve he can be anything, and put on the seeming of an angel of light even. I tell you, Christian, that I am sure, quite sure, that it _is_ he. I met him as I came here, and I shuddered as I saw him, and even felt myself shrinking back lest his clothes should touch me; but little did I suspect that he was about to bring more grief upon us. Does Mary, do you think, care for him?” Christian could not but tell him her fears; but she said also that Mary had always avoided speaking to her on the subject. What could they do? What should be done to save Mary? Halbert, in his impatience, would have gone to seek her out at once, and have pointed out to her the character of her lover; but Christian only mournfully shook her head, such a plan was most likely to do harm and not good. “You must be calm, Halbert,” she said, “this impetuosity will be injurious--we must save Mary by gentler means, she is far too like yourself to be told in this outspoken manner--the shock would kill her.” But old Ailie is stealing the door of the room open timidly, to break in on the first hour of Christian’s joy, and when she entered she did it with a look of sober cheerfulness, widely different from her late joyful frenzy. “Miss Mary came in a while since,” she said, “and ran straight up to her own room, without speaking, or waiting till I telled her of Mr. Halbert’s home coming, and she looked pale and ill like; would you not go up, Miss Christian, and see?” The Melvilles are Ailie’s own children, and she has a mother’s care of them in all their troubles, bodily or mental. So at her bidding Christian rose and went softly to Mary’s room: the door was closed, but she opened it gently, and standing hidden by the curtains of Mary’s bed, was witness to the wild burst of passionate sorrow and disappointed affection in which Mary’s breaking heart gushed forth, when she found herself once more alone. Herself unseen, Christian saw the scalding tears welling out from her gentle sister’s dim and swollen eyes, she saw the convulsive motions of her lithe and graceful figure, as she rocked herself to and fro, as if to ease or still the burning grief within: and she heard her broken murmurs.