Pacing up and down her room the night before, with widely-opened eyes, gazing upon the solemn blackness that surrounds her, all the wrongs and slights she has endured come to her with startling distinctness. No sense of weariness, no thought of a necessity for sleep, disturbs her reverie or breaks in upon the monotonous misery of her musings. She is past all that. Already her death has come to her,--a death to her hope, and joy, and peace,--even to that poor calm that goes so far to deceive the outer world. Oh, the cold, quiet night, when speech is not and sleep has forgotten us! when all the doubts and fears and jealousies that in the blessed daylight slumber, rise up to torture us when even the half-suspected sneer, the covert neglect, that some hours ago were but as faintest pin-pricks, now gall and madden as a poisoned thrust! A wild thirst for revenge grows within her breast as one by one she calls to mind all the many injuries she has received. Strangely enough,--and unlike a woman,--her anger is concentrated on Philip, rather than on the one he loves, instinct telling her he is not beloved in return. She broods upon her wrongs until, as the first bright streak of yellow day illumes the room, flinging its glories profusely upon the wall and ceiling, pretty knickknacks that return its greeting, and angry, unthankful creature alike, a thought comes to her that promises to amply satisfy her vengeful craving. As she ponders on it a curious light breaks upon her face, a smile half triumph, half despair. * * * * * Now, standing before her grandfather's room, with a folded letter crushed within her palm, and a heart that beats almost to suffocation, she hears him bid her enter. Fatigued by the unusual exertions of a ball, Mr. Amherst is seated at his table in a lounging-chair, clad in his dressing-gown, and looking older, feebler, than is his wont. He merely glances at his visitor as she approaches, without comment of any description. "I have had something on my mind for some time, grandpapa," begins Marcia, who is pale and worn, through agitation and the effects of a long and hopeless vigil. "I think it only right to let you know. I have suppressed it all this time, because I feared distressing you; but now--now--will you read this?" She hands him, as she speaks, the letter received by Philip two months before relative to his unlucky dealings with some London Jews. In silence Mr. Amherst reads it, in silence re-reads it, and finally, folding it up again, places it within his desk. "You and Philip have quarreled?" he says, presently, in a quiet tone. "No, there has been no quarrel." "Your engagement is at an end?" "Yes."