He then retired to sleep, and rested several hours. She looked on him while he slept. He had never rested so profoundly since he had begun the labor from which he was now freed. The slumber of an infant had never been less disturbed, never been softer, sweeter, or purer. The beauty of Cœlius was that of the most peaceful purity. She bent over him as he slept, and kissed his forehead with looks of the truest devotion, while two big tears gathered in her large eyes, and slowly felt their way along her cheeks. She turned away lest the warm drops falling upon his face might awake him. She turned away, and in her own apartment gave free vent to the feelings which his pure and placid slumbers seemed rather to subdue than encourage. Why, with such a husband—her first love—and with so many motives to happiness, was she not happy? Alas! who shall declare for the secret yearnings of the heart, and say, as idly as Canute to the sea, “thus far shalt thou go, and no farther—here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” Aurelia was a creature of fears and anxieties, and many a secret and sad presentiment. She was very far from happy—ill at ease—and—but why anticipate? We shall soon enough arrive at the issue of our melancholy narrative! That night, while she slept—for grief and apprehension have their periods of exhaustion, which we misname repose—her husband rose from his couch, and with cautious footsteps departed from his dwelling. He was absent all the night, and returned only with the dawn. He re-entered his home with the same stealthy caution with which he had quitted it, and it might have been remarked that he dismissed his brother, with two other persons, at the threshold. They were all masked, and otherwise disguised with cloaks. Why this mystery? Where had they been—on what mission of mischief or of shame? To Cœlius such a necessity was new, and scarcely had he entered his dwelling than he cast aside his disguises with the air of one who loathes their uses. He was very pale and haggard, with a fixed but glistening expression of the eye, a brow of settled gloom, from which hope and faith, and every interest in life seemed utterly to be banished. A single groan escaped him when he stood alone, and then he raised himself erect, as if hitherto he had leaned upon the arms of others. He carried himself firmly and loftily, his lips compressed, his eye eagerly looking forward, and thus, after the interval of a few seconds, he passed to the chamber of his wife. And still she slept. He bent over her, earnestly and intently gazing upon those beauties which grief seemed only to sadden into superior sweetness. He looked upon her with those earnest eyes of love, the expression of which can never be misunderstood. Still he loved her, though between her heart and his a high, impassable barrier had been raised up by the machinations of a guilty spirit. Tenderness was the prevailing character of his glance until she spoke. Her sleep, though