Another day was to be passed in that agony of impatience which none but those of a highly imaginative nature can ever dream of—a weary night had been spent, the morning had come—surely, surely that day _must_ bring a letter from the absent one. The air of her chamber—that chamber where her child had slept in her bosom, where _he_ had been so often—she would not wait there; all the associations were so vivid, they goaded her on to keener impatience. She could not draw a deep breath in that room, thinking of _him_ and _it_. So, as I have said, Zulima stole forth and wandered away where all was wild as her own feelings, and a thousand times more tranquil. Ross had promised her to return very early from the city that day, when he hoped—the villain could not look into her eyes as he said it—when he hoped to bring a letter that would make his sweet guest smile again. Zulima knew a place near the highway which led to the city, and yet sheltered from any traveler that might pass, by the broken banks of a rivulet. Thick trees fell over it, and in some places the water was completely embowered by their branches. She could hear the tread of a horse from the spot, should one pass up from the city; and so, with a cheek that kindled and a heart that leaped to each sound, the young creature sat down to wait. To wait! oh, how hard a task for her untamed spirit, her eager wishes! Never till her marriage with Mr. Clark had Zulima’s vivid nature been fully aroused; never before had she been capable of the exquisite joy, the intense suffering that marked every stage of her attachment to that lofty and singular man. As she sat then by the lonely brook, the young creature gave herself up to a reverie that embraced all her life, for life with her seemed to have commenced only since she had met him. She drew forth his letters and read them again and again; tears blinded her sometimes, but she swept them away with her fingers, and read on, kissing here and there a line that spoke most eloquently to her heart. She came to the last letter; that was more ardent in its language, and warmer in its expression of love, than any of the others had been. Why was this the last? What had happened to check a pen so eloquent, to chill a heart so warm? Was he dead? This was Zulima’s thought; she never doubted his faith or distrusted his honor for a single moment. When the serpent jealousy reaches a heart like hers, it comes with a fling, striking his fang suddenly and at once. Zulima was not jealous, but that fierce pain lay coiled close by her heart, ready to make a leap that should envenom her whole being. More than once Zulima had started from her seat at some slight sound, which proved to be only a bird rising from the overhanging bank, or a rabbit leaping across the thick sward, and thus, between hope and despondency, dreams and thoughts of the stern real, the time crept by till noon. A wooden bridge scarcely lifted above the water, spanned the brook only a