"Then I am indeed a wretch!" exclaimed Augusta, sinking down into a chair, and clasping her hands despairingly over her face; "but I deserve this humiliation." Clarence drew nearer to her--she hesitated--he trembled. The triumphant fire that revelled in his eyes was quenched; compassion, tenderness, and self-reproach softened their beams. He was in the very act of kneeling before her, to deprecate her forgiveness, when the door softly opened, and Mary Manning entered. Her step was always gentle, and she had approached unheard. She looked at them first with a smile, but Augusta's countenance was not one that could reflect a smile; and on Mary's face, at that moment, it appeared to her as a smile of derision. Clarence lingered a moment, as if unwilling to depart, yet uncertain whether to remain or go--then asking Mary for her father, he hastily retired, leaving Augusta in a state of such agitation, that Mary, seriously alarmed, entreated her to explain the cause of her distress. "Explain!" cried Augusta. "You have witnessed my humiliation, and yet ask me the cause. I do not claim your sympathy, the grief I now feel admits of none; I was born to be unhappy, and whichever way I turn, I am wretched." "Only tell me one thing, dear Augusta, is all your grief owing to the discovery of your love for Clarence, and to the sentiments with which you have inspired him? There is no humiliation in loving Clarence--for who could know him and not love him?" Augusta looked in Mary's face, assured that she was uttering the language of mockery. Mary, the pure moralist, the mild, but uncompromising advocate for duty and virtue, thus to palliate the indulgence of a forbidden passion! It could only be in derision; yet her eye was so serene, and her smile so kind, it was impossible to believe that contempt was lurking beneath. "Then you _do_ love him, Mary, and I am doubly treacherous!" Mary blushed--"with the affection of a sister, the tenderness of a friend, do I regard him; I admire his talents, I venerate his virtues." "Virtues! oh! Mary, he is a traitor to his friend; what reliance is there on those virtues, which, having no root in the heart, are swept away by the first storm of passion?" "Passion may enter the purest heart," answered Mary; "guilt consists in yielding to its influence. I would pledge my life that Clarence would never give himself up to the influence of a guilty passion." "Talk not of him, let me forget his existence, if I can; I think of one, who will return from his long exile, only to find his hopes deceived, his confidence betrayed, his heart broken." Here Augusta wept in such anguish, that Mary, finding it in vain to console her, threw her arms around her, and wept in sympathy; yet still she smiled through her tears, and again and again repeated to her, that heaven had long years of happiness yet in store.