Clark stood gazing upon her, every nerve in his body quivering; the horror that her face had exhibited, that sharp cry, the utter prostration of her energies, all these things were fast unsealing his eyes. He sat down by the unhappy woman and attempted to remove one of the pale hands clasped over her eyes, but she resisted him with a faint shudder, and then through those lashed fringes gushed a flood of tears. “Zulima, try and compose yourself, make one effort; for, on earth, I feel that this must be our last interview. Shrink not thus! I have never wronged you, or if it prove so, not knowingly or wilfully.” Zulima shook her head, and sobbed aloud. “There has been wrong, deep, black wrong, somewhere,” she said; “I was told that you also had deceived me by a false marriage, that the ceremony we went through was a fraud, and I your victim, not a wife.” “And who told you this infamous falsehood?” said Clark, clasping his hands till the blood left them, in the agony of his impatience. “Ross hinted it; Smith told me so in Philadelphia and in Baltimore. They told me, also, that you were about to marry another; I saw you together with my own eyes. You refused to see me; but for that I had never believed them!” “And Smith told you this; Ross hinted it,” cried Clark, locking his teeth with terrible anger. “These two men whom I have fed, whom—” he paused; the violence of his emotion was too great for words. But why should we further describe the harrowing scene? It was long before these two unhappy beings could speak with calmness, but at length all was told—the fraud that had kept back their mutual letters, the slow and subtle poison that had been instilled so assiduously into each proud and passionate nature—all. For the first time, Clark learned the sufferings, the passionate love, that had sent his young wife in search of him, her struggles, her despair. Then his own haughty reserve gave way; he laid open his whole heart before her, its history and its anguish. He told her of his wanderings, of the deep and harrowing love; which not even a belief in her faithlessness could wring from his heart; he told her all, and then these proud beings sat again, side by side, looking in each other’s faces, and yet separated, oh, how irrevocably! Then came the time for parting. Zulima must go back to her home, and he—where could he seek shelter from the grief of that terrible moment?