Under the influence of this impulse it was that she arose, and going to a writing-table, sat down, and wrote to Eugene Trevor; not to accuse--not to condemn--not even to attack him in the mildest terms with the grave charge she had heard laid against him. There was no such spirit as this in Mary; though the mere reminiscences of past words and looks which had escaped her lover in moments of uncontrol, but more still the words he had left unspoken--the looks so sedulously avoided, rose before her remembrance, and flashed fearful conviction on her mind; the more her soul shrunk from the dark idea now connected with her lover's history, the more did her heart bleed for him, who must all along have carried in his breast so heavy a load of conscience, upon whose life one fatal remembrance must have cast its bleak and dreary shade, whose smile must have hidden so aching a heart--whose laugh, which had so often rejoiced her soul, must have rung forth so false and hollow from his breast; and as love seemed startled from its seat, so did a great compassion usurp its place within her soul. And he, the persecuted, the alien--how far less for him she felt were tears of pity due! No, addressing Eugene in the subdued and broken terms which more touchingly spoke the feeling actuating her heart than any stern or solemn eloquence of appeal could have done, she began by alluding to the distressing interview of the preceding night; she gave him to understand her determination, that it should be final--that it had become the gradual conviction of her mind, that it was not fit that they should ever be united--before she had seen him, indeed, she had promised her brother that their inauspicious engagement should be brought to an end. Since then a terrible story had been sounded in her ear--one she had not courage to repeat--she would only say it related to his conduct to his brother, of whose identity with Mr. Temple she now was fully aware. Mary asked for no confession or denial of the imputation, but she told him simply where that brother was to be found, and implored him no longer, if innocent, to countenance such an implication, by consenting to continue his present false position in his father's house, under cover of so baseless a plea as that which had made his brother an exile. But if any shade of truth rested on the story, why then what remained, but that full reparation which would bring peace and happiness to his own soul--greater peace and happiness, she was sure, if a single shade of guilt in this respect had laid upon it than he ever could have tasted since the dreadful moment when first it rested there? She was sure, though bitter words had been wrung from him in the excitement of last night's conversation, that he would feel convinced of the disinterestedness of the feelings which prompted her anxiety in this affair--that she would have pleaded for the interest of an utter stranger, as now she pleaded for the valued friend whom, whatever