“And the thirty thousand pounds will be sunk for ever and ever in the firm of Hillary and Co.,” the merchant may have thought at the close of that enthusiastic address. Thus it was that Maude Hillary arrived at the very point towards which fate and her father had been pushing her for the last twelve months. After that passionate impulse of self-sacrifice had passed away, a dull dead feeling of pain took possession of her breast. Alone in the quiet of her own pretty rooms; alone through the long sunny July mornings with her books, and Berlin-wool work, and piano, she had only too much time to consider the step she had taken; she had only too much time to think of her broken vows, her scattered hopes. And she did think of these things,--with cruel remorse and self-upbraiding, with bitter and unavailing regret. And now Francis Tredethlyn appeared to her all at once in a new light. Alas! he was no longer the noble-hearted friend to whom she could appeal for help in the day of trouble. He was no longer the humble adorer, kneeling on the lowest step of the altar, remote and submissive. He was her affianced husband, and he had a right to her society. He had a right to attend her in her walks and rides, to linger near the piano when she sang, to hold perpetual skeins of Berlin-wool during those tedious morning visits which he made now and again to the Cedars. All these privileges were his by right; and other people gave place when he approached Miss Hillary, and watched to see her face brighten as he drew near her. It was not that Francis himself was in any way altered. His adoration of his bright divinity was no less humble than of old--even now when he knew that the goddess was to descend from her pedestal and exchange her starry crown for the orange-blossoms of an earthly bride. He was in no way changed; the distance between himself and Maude Hillary was as wide as ever. He could set it before him--a palpable gulf, across which he beheld her, a strange creature, in a strange land,--a creature who might hold out her hand to him once in a way across the impassable abyss, but who could never draw him near her. Alas for Francis Tredethlyn’s loveless betrothal! that dreary distance was growing wider every day, now that Iphigenia knew the hour of sacrifice was drawing near.