“It is for you, dear father,” said the young man, at the same time handing him the letter. Mr. Dacre’s eyes glowed with unusual lustre, and he said reverently, “Thank God! I shall once more hear the sweet words of affection from my darling child! read it to me, Walter, I am too blind to read it myself.” Walter opened the letter; but at the first glance a chill like ice crept over his frame. “It is not from Mabel, father,” he said, in a voice of such ill-suppressed agony, that Mr. Dacre started, then almost gasping for breath, he read as follows: “Mr. Dacre,—At the request of Lady Mabel Arlington, I desire to inform you of her approaching marriage with the Duke D’Alençon, a zealous supporter of her father’s faith, and a nobleman of the highest rank. Under such circumstances she deems it proper that _all_ intercourse between herself and her childhood’s associates should cease entirely. “Robert, Earl of Arlington.” “Oh God! must I drink this cup of bitterness! My Mabel false to her faith; my child, my child, it must not be,” murmured the old man—and his cheek grew paler and paler. The shock was too great for his weak frame, and with one long sigh his ransomed spirit fled to its eternal rest. What language can paint the bitterness, the deep intensity of Walter’s anguish. That Mabel, his beloved, his plighted wife, could be another’s, was a thought too fearful for his soul’s strength; he could not believe that there was on earth a misery so great. No, it should not be; and he cried aloud in the terrible struggle with his agony, “I will tear her away from them all; I will fly to her, and lay at her feet my wealth of despised affection. Yes, I will snatch my treasure from those gilded nobles, and bring her to some lonely wilderness where none shall dare molest us. “Oh Mabel, my love, my precious one; can your heart so soon have grown cold; have you forgotten already in your gorgeous home the happy cottage where you grew in innocence and beauty, and each day, each hour, I loved you with an intense and yet tenderer passion? Is the gay world, then, so alluring, so fascinating. Alas! I could not give my darling wealth, or luxury, or splendor, and in her new home, she has found them all. Poor, presumptuous fool that I was, to think that amid the gifted, the learned, the flattering crowd who throng around the peerless Lady Mabel, she could remember through long years of absence, the humble, unknown curate. “And yet she bade me not doubt her even in the darkest hours, she was so true, so loving, so constant; is there not some ray of hope; some little ground for faith”—and in very despair he read again the fatal letter—“by Lady Mabel’s request,” met his eye, and once more he flung it from him.