This evidence, taken in connection with the fact that the young girl was found sleeping, as usual, in the little room adjoining Virginia's chamber, entirely exculpated her from any participation in the crime. Nothing then was left for it, but to suppose that the unhappy man, in a fit of desperation, had himself put a period to his existence. A little investigation might have easily satisfied them that such an hypothesis was as groundless as the rest; for it was afterwards ascertained by Colonel Temple, after a strict search, that no weapon was found on or near the body, nor in the apartment where it lay. But Sir William Berkeley, anxious to proceed upon his way to Accomac, and caring but little, perhaps, for the fate of a rebel, whose life was probably shortened but a few hours, gave the affair a very hurried and summary examination. Bernard, with his quick sagacity, discovered, or at least shrewdly suspected, the truth, and Mamalis felt, as he fixed his dark eyes upon her, that he had read the mystery of her heart. But, for his own reasons, the villain for the present maintained the strictest silence on the subject. But this catastrophe, so fatal to Berkenhead, was fortunate for young Hansford. The Governor, more true to his word to loyalists than he had hitherto been to the insurgents, released our hero from imprisonment, in the absence of any testimony against him. And, to the infinite chagrin of Alfred Bernard, his rival, once more at liberty, was again, in the language of the treacherous Plantagenet, “a very serpent in his way.” He had too surely discovered, that so long as Hansford lived, the heart of Virginia Temple, or what he valued far more, her hand, could never be given to another; and yet he felt, that if he were out of the way, and that heart, though widowed, free to choose again, the emotions of mistaken gratitude would prompt her to listen with favour to his suit. With all his faults, too, and with his mercenary motives, Bernard was not without a feeling, resembling love, for Virginia. We are told that there are fruits and flowers which, though poisonous in their native soil, when transplanted and cherished under more genial circumstances, become at once fair to the eye and wholesome to the taste. It is thus with love. In the wild, sterile heart of Alfred Bernard it had taken root, and poisoned all his nature; but yet it was the same emotion which shed a genial influence over the manly heart of Hansford. If it had been otherwise, there were some as fair, and many far more wealthy, in his adopted colony, than Virginia Temple. But she was at once adapted to his interests, his passions, and his intellect. She could aid his vaulting ambition by sharing with him her wealth; she could control, by the strength of her character, and the sweetness of her disposition, his own wild nature; and she could be the instructive and congenial companion of his intellect. And all this rich treasure might be his but for the