“Love!” exclaimed Madeline. “Grant me patience!--Love! It was but now I thought myself honoured by the affection you said you bore me. At this instant, I blush to have called forth a single sentiment in one who knows so little what love is! Love!--methought that word denoted all that was high and noble in human nature--confidence, hope, devotion, sacrifice of all thought of self! but you would make it the type and concentration of all that lowers and debases!--suspicion--cavil--fear--selfishness in all its shapes! Out on you--love!” “Enough, enough! Say no more, Madeline, say no more. We part not as I had hoped; but be it so. You are changed indeed, if your conscience smite you not hereafter for this injustice. Farewell, and may you never regret, not only the heart you have rejected, but the friendship you have belied.” With these words, and choked by his emotions, Walter hastily strode away. He hurried into the house, and into a little room adjoining the chamber in which he slept, and which had been also appropriated solely to his use. It was now spread with boxes and trunks, some half packed, some corded, and inscribed with the address to which they were to be sent in London. All these mute tokens of his approaching departure struck upon his excited feelings with a suddenness that overpowered him. “And it is thus--thus,” said he aloud, “that I am to leave, for the first time, my childhood’s home.” He threw himself on his chair, and covering his face with his hands, burst, fairly subdued and unmanned, into a paroxysm of tears. When this emotion was over, he felt as if his love for Madeline had also disappeared; a sore and insulted feeling was all that her image now recalled to him. This idea gave him some consolation. “Thank God!” he muttered, “thank God, I am cured at last!” The thanksgiving was scarcely over, before the door opened softly, and Ellinor, not perceiving him where he sat, entered the room, and laid on the table a purse which she had long promised to knit him, and which seemed now designed as a parting gift. She sighed heavily as she laid it down, and he observed that her eyes seemed red as with weeping. He did not move, and Ellinor left the room without discovering him; but he remained there till dark, musing on her apparition, and before he went down-stairs, he took up the little purse, kissed it, and put it carefully into his bosom. He sate next to Ellinor at supper that evening, and though he did not say much, his last words were more to her than words had ever been before. When he took leave of her for the night, he whispered, as he kissed her cheek; “God bless you, dearest Ellinor, and till I return, take care of yourself, for the sake of one, who loves you now, better than any thing on earth.” Lester had just left the room to write some letters for Walter; and Madeline, who had hitherto sat absorbed and silent by the window, now approached Walter, and offered him her hand.