That evening Mrs. Norwood sat in her quiet room, with the light of a shaded lamp falling upon the gentle beauty of a face now lighted up with hope, and which, but for the restless and hurried glance which was occasionally turned upon the quaintly fashioned clock, might have seemed the picture of placid happiness. A soft glow flushed her cheek, her eyes were full of radiance, and, as she raised her head in the attitude of a listener, a smile of almost childlike joyousness parted her flexible lips. A step resounded on the gravel walk without. Her first impulse led her to spring forward to welcome the expected visitant, but womanly pride checked her in mid career, and she yet stood in half uncertainty when the door opened to admit a servant who handed her a small parcel. Her cheek grew ashy pale as she broke the seal. A paper dropped from the envelop—it was her own letter to Allston; and she sank into a chair as she unfolded the note which accompanied it. Written in Allston’s hand, yet so blotted, and traced in such irregular characters, that the agitation of the writer might well be divined, were these words: “I will not express the agony of mind with which I have perused the enclosed papers. I have been tried almost beyond my strength, but I have been mercifully spared the commission of a crime at which my soul shudders. I will not upbraid you, madam, for your cruel concealment; your own conscience will be your accuser, and it will not fail to remind you that your deception has nearly hurled me from an eminence which it has been the labor of my life to reach. But you have been only an instrument in the hands of a higher power. I fancied myself superior to temptation, and God has sent you to teach me the necessity of closer watchfulness over my still frail nature. Eleanor Norwood, I have loved you as I never loved earthly creature before, but sooner would I suffer the keenest pangs of that chronic heartbreak, to which the martyrdom of the pile and fagot is but pastime, than take to my arms the wife of a living husband. You have made me wretched but you cannot make me criminal. Henceforth we meet no more on earth, for I have vowed to tear your image from my heart, though, even now, every fibre bleeds at the rude sundering of such close knit ties. Receive my forgiveness and my farewell.”