“I will give them every opportunity. While Kingsley and myself ramble together, well leave this devoted pair to their own cogitations, taking care, however, to see what comes of them.” I promised Julia to be home in season, but said nothing of my intention to ask the gentlemen. She thanked me with a look and smile, which, had I not seen all things through eyes of the most jaundiced green, would have seemed to me that of an angel, expressive only of the truest love. “Ah! could I but believe!” was the bitter self-murmur of my soul, as I left the threshold. On my way through the town I stopped at the postoffice to get letters, and received one from Mrs. Delaney--late Clifford--my wife's exemplary mother, addressed to Julia. I then proceeded to Edgerton's lodgings. He was not yet up, and I saw him in his chamber. His flute lay upon the toilet. Seeing it, I recalled, with all its original vexing bitterness, the scene which took place the night previous to my departure from my late home. And when I looked on Edgerton--saw with what effort he spoke, and how timidly he expressed himself--how reluctant were his eyes to meet the gaze of mine--his guilt seemed equally fresh and unequivocal. I marked him out, involuntarily, as my victim. I felt assured, even while conveying to him the complimentary invitation which I bore, that my hand was commissioned to do the work of death upon his limbs. Strange and fascinating conviction! But I did not contemplate this necessity with any pleasure. No! I would have prayed--I did pray--that the task might be spared me. If I thought of it at all, it was as the agent of a necessity which I could not countervail. The fates had me in their keeping. I was the blind instrument obeying the inflexible will, against which “Reluctant nature strives in vain.” I felt then, most truly, though I deceived myself, that I had no power, though every disposition, to save and to spare. I conveyed my invitation as a message from my wife. “Edgerton, my wife has planned a little ramble for this afternoon. She wishes to show you some of the beauties of landscape in our new abode. She commissions me to ask you to join us.” “Ah! did SHE?” he demanded eagerly, with a slight emphasis on the last word. “Ay, did she! Will you come?” “Certainly--with pleasure!” He need not have said so much. The pleasure spoke in his bright eyes--in the tremulous hurry of his utterance. I turned away from him, lest I should betray the angry feeling which disturbed me. He did not seek to arrest my departure. He had few words. It was sufficiently evident that he shrunk from my glance and trembled in my presence. How far otherwise, in the days of our mutual innocence--in our days of boyhood--when his face seemed clear like that of a pure, perfect star, shining out in the blue serene of night, unconscious of a cloud.