Edward himself, though desirous of the conclusion, is wounded and astonished by it. Dahlia’s silence startles him, and he continually asks for her letters. He cannot help thinking of her while seeking the distractions of Paris to forget her. Never for one moment does he alienate our sympathies completely, and we understand from the beginning that he is neither a vulgar sinner nor cynic. Indeed, it is with a sense of personal satisfaction that we greet his return to England, resolved upon a courageous and manly atonement--a changed man, unable to get the thought of his unfortunate victim out of his head. In that fine interview with his father we are proud that he has surpassed our predictions of him, and we wish he would be left to warm the poor heart he has chilled to stone. But Rhoda is there to shield her sister from what she regards as perfidious tenderness. Nothing will induce her to believe in the sincerity of Edward’s repentance, nor accept his atonement. The unhappy girl, between all these ill-advised friends and protectors, is forced to an abhorred ceremony, where at the church door she is submitted to the indignity of being flung off by the ruffian who has married her for money. Is this human retribution? for it is worse even than God’s! When later Sedgett comes down to Kent to claim his scorned wife, Dahlia, to escape him, drinks poison, and when Edward comes, showing upon his pallid face the touch of wasting grief for all the wringing sorrows brought about by his own temporary baseness, and Rhoda, melted to him, calls her sister down to happiness, Dahlia is found by the side of the bed, ‘inanimate and pale as a sister of death.’ She is brought back to life, but not to happiness. Wasted and weak, passion in her was extinguished, and neither the touch of her lover’s hand nor his voice could ever again thrill her. Robert and Rhoda marry, but neither Edward nor Dahlia marry. Her heart was among the ashes, and her last words to Robert are, ‘Help poor girls!’ CHAPTER IV. ‘EVAN HARRINGTON,’ ‘THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND,’ ‘SANDRA BELLONI,’ AND ‘BEAUCHAMP’S CAREER.’