aid, who neither giveth aught, nor taketh away, without reason. Hark!” he interrupted himself, starting slightly, “there is a sound of horses’ hoofs without; your brother has returned, and it may be Sir Miles is with him. We will speak more of this hereafter.” And with the word he turned and left the room. When he was gone she raised her eyes to heaven, and with a strange rapt expression on her fair features rose to her feet, exclaiming— “Genius! Genius! Great God, Great God, I thank thee.” Then, in the fervor of the moment, which led her naturally to clasp her hands together, she made a movement to withdraw her fingers from Jasper’s deathlike grasp, unconscious, for the time, of every thing around her. But, as she did so, a tightened pressure of his hand, and some inarticulate sounds which proceeded from his lips, recalled her with a start to herself. She dropped into her seat, as if conscience-stricken, gazed fixedly in his face, then stooped and pressed her lips on his inanimate brow; started again, looked about the room with a half guilty glance, bowed her head on his pillow, and wept bitterly. CHAPTER III. _The Recognition._ They had been friends in youth. BYRON. The evening had advanced far into night before the effects of the potion he had swallowed passed away, and left the mind of Jasper clear, and his pulse regular and steady. When he awoke from his long stupor, and turned his eyes around him, it seemed as if he had dreamed of what he saw before him; for the inanimate objects of the room, nay, the very faces which met his eye, had something in them that was not altogether unfamiliar, yet for his life he could not have recalled when, or if ever he had seen them before. The old dark-wainscoted walls of the irregular, many-recessed apartment, adorned with a few watercolor drawings, and specimens of needle-work, the huge black and gold Indian cabinet in one corner, the tall clock-stand of some foreign wood in another, the slab above the yawning hearth covered with tropical shells and rare foreign curiosities, the quaint and grotesque chairs and tables, with strangely contorted legs and arms, and wild satyr-like faces grinning from their bosses, the very bed on which he lay, with its carved head-board, and groined canopy of oak, and dark green damask curtains, were all things which he felt he must have seen, though where and how he knew not. So was the face of the slight fair-haired girl who sat a little way removed from his bed’s head, by a small round work-table, on which stood a waxen taper, bending over some one of those light tasks of embroidery or knitting which women love, and are wont to dignify by the name of work.