The hour came when they must part. She was not to see him on the morrow, until the trial was over; for her presence during the preliminary scenes was neither fitting nor practicable. Already great indulgences had been granted to the prisoner, arising from his peculiar position, the great length of time since the supposed crime had been committed, and the impression, now become general, that he was innocent. But this had limits--the morrow was to decide all, and send him forth free and guiltless, or doom him to all the horrors of condemnation and final suffering. Their parting was solemn. Neither indulged in grief. Falkner felt composed--Elizabeth endeavoured to assume tranquillity; but her lips quivered, and she could not speak; it was like separating not to meet for years; a few short hours, and she would look again upon his face--but how much would happen in the interval! how mighty a change have occurred! What agony would both have gone through! the one picturing, the other enduring the scene of the morrow; the gaze of thousands--the accusation--the evidence--the defence--the verdict--each of these bearing with it to the well-born and refined a barbed dart, pregnant with thrilling poison; ignominy added to danger. How Elizabeth longed to express to the assembled world the honour in which she held him, whom all looked on as overwhelmed with disgrace; how she yearned to declare the glory she took in the ties that bound them, and the affection that she bore! She must be mute--but she felt all this to bursting; and her last words, "Best of men! excellent, upright, noble, generous, God will preserve you and restore you to me!" expressed in some degree the swelling emotions of her soul. They parted. Night and silence gathered round Falkner's pillow. With stoical firmness he banished retrospect--he banished care. He laid his hopes and fears at the feet of that Almighty power, who holds earth and all it contains in the hollow of his hand, and he would trouble himself no more concerning the inevitable though unknown decree. His thoughts were at first solemn and calm; and then, as the human mind can never, even in torture, fix itself unalterably on one point, milder and more pleasing reveries presented themselves. He thought of himself as a wild yet not worthless schoolboy--he remembered the cottage porch clustered over with odoriferous parasites, under whose shadow sat--the sick, pale lady, with her starry eyes and wise lessons, and her radiant daughter, whose soft hand he held as they both nestled close at her feet. He recalled his wanderings with that daughter over hill and dale, when their steps were light, and their hearts unburdened with a care, soared to that heaven which her blessed spirit had already reached. Oh, what is life, that these dreams of youth and innocence should have conducted her to an untimely grave--him to a felon's cell! The thought came with a sharp pang; again he banished it, and the land of Greece, his perils, and his