The window was open--the sunbeams played upon the old quaint furniture, the room seemed fresh, and bright, and clear, in comparison with the rest of the house; which ever since Marryott's death and funeral seemed to have retained the influence, and impressed him with those revolting ideas attached to the signs and ensigns of mortality entertained by the mind who cannot, or dare not, look beyond those consequences of corruptibility for the object of that fearful power. A dark, pall-like covering seemed spread over the whole house; a close, sickly atmosphere to pervade it throughout. But here--all this seemed to have been effectually shut out, as if the destroying angel, as he brushed past with hasty wing, had seen the mark upon that door, which forbade him entrance; and Eugene Trevor went and stretched his head out of the window, breathing more freely than he had done for many a day. Suddenly, however, he drew back; the action had brought to his remembrance just such another clear, bright sunny day, when he had last stood leaning in that position; but alas! how differently accompanied. Then alone with a fair, pure, gentle girl--her sweet presence, her tender voice, infusing into his soul an influence which for the time had lifted him almost above himself into a paradise of thought--of feeling he had long since forfeited; and now alone--alone with his own dark jarring thoughts--alone with that juggling fiend impenitent remorse gnashing at his heart--alone with his present disquiet--with the threatening fear of the future--the withering memories of the past. Well might he have cried aloud for the lost dream which suggested this comparison--a dream indeed false and treacherous in its foundation; for except that conscience slept undisturbed, how was he different then to what he is now. And yet he would fain have recalled it, for suddenly with that association seemed to have taken hold upon his fancy a passionate yearning, an impatient regret that he had not been able to secure possession of the being who had at that time certainly exercised a very worthy influence over his affections. A tormenting idea that his marriage at that period might have warded off the evils now circling threatening around his head; or at the worst have given him a fond and devoted sharer in his fortunes, such as in the whole world he knew not where to look for now. For how she had loved him! Yes, it was pleasant and soothing to his feelings, in their present ruffled state, to remember that he had been loved so tenderly, so purely, so entirely for himself alone: and then came the stinging reaction--the remembrance that he was no longer loved--that he had seen a look of fear, almost of aversion, usurp the place of confiding affection in those soft and loving eyes: that finally, she had fainted from mere abhorrence at the idea of the promise he had pressed so urgently upon her--then too, when it seemed she had not heard the story which proved the cause and subject