Our poor Mary has slept long and calmly, and when Robert’s shout awoke her, she started up in astonishment. She was lying in the dark room alone, with silence round about her, and her pillow was wet with tears. Mary raised herself in her bed, and throwing back the disordered hair which hung about her face tried to collect her bewildered thoughts. The memory of her grief has left her for the moment, and she is wondering what the sound could be that came indistinctly to her ears; it sounded, she fancied, very like “Halbert.” Who could be speaking of him, and as she repeats his name the full knowledge of what has passed, all the momentous events and misery of this day come upon her like a dream. Poor Mary! a heavy sigh breaks from her parted lips, and she presses her hand over her painful eyes. She does not see the approaching light which steals into the little room; she does not hear the light footstep of its gentle bearer, but she feels the kind pressure of Christian’s arm, and most readily and thankfully rests her head on Christian’s supporting shoulder. “I have news to tell you,” whispers Christian, “which you will be glad of and smile at, though you are sighing now. You remember Halbert, Mary?” Remember him! but Mary’s only answer is a sigh. Halbert’s name has terrible associations for her to-night; she has remembered him and his fortunes so well and clearly this day. “Mary, Halbert has come home, will you rouse yourself to see him?” “Come home, Halbert come home!” and the poor girl lifted up her head. “Forgive me, Christian, forgive me, but I have done very wrong, and I am very, very unhappy;” and the tears flowed on Christian’s neck again more freely than before. “You have done nobly, dear Mary--only rouse yourself, shake off this grief; you have done well, and God will give you strength. Let me bathe your temples--you will soon be better now,” said Christian, parting the long dishevelled hair, and wiping away the still streaming tears. “That man is not worthy one tear from you, Mary: be thankful rather, dearest, for your deliverance from his cunning and his wiles.” A deep blush flitted over Mary’s tear-stained face, as she raised herself and began with Christian’s tender assistance to remove the traces of her grief. Christian wondered as she saw her begin to move about the little room again; there was a still composure gathering about her gentle features, which the elder sister, accustomed to think of Mary as still little more than a child, could only marvel at in silence. Her eyes were almost stern in their calmness, and her voice was firmer than Christian could have believed possible as she turned to speak. “Yes, Christian, I am thankful--thankful beyond anything I can say; but do not ask me about anything just now,” she continued, hurriedly, as Christian looked up to her as if about to speak. “I will tell you all afterwards, but not to-night--not to-night, dear Christian.”