Hours passed ere the old man found speech and consciousness again; and the physician who had been summoned shook his head warningly. "It was a narrow escape," he said; "careful, old man, careful. What is it the Bible, or some other good book says--'let not your angry passions rise?' Who's been vexing you?" Lola, his special favorite, whose eyes he had seen opening on the light of this world, was not present, or her ghastly face might have prevented him from asking the question. Mrs. Wheaton was again the quiet, sad-faced woman, solicitous only for the comfort and well-doing of the man who had been to her the most indulgent of husbands. It was hard to say what was passing in her heart; perhaps the crater had long since burned out, and the silver threads running through her raven hair was the snow that had gathered on the cold ashes. For Lola there was neither rest nor sleep, and she insisted on watching through the night by her father's bedside, though assured that there was no necessity for keeping watch. Early the next morning she went out, not clandestinely, but with a determined step and an expression in her eye than which nothing could be more sad and hopeless. She returned after many hours, and though her eyes had lost none of their dreary expression, there seemed to be some purpose written in them that could also be traced in the lines drawn since yesterday about the firmly closed mouth. Her mother, concealed by the heavy curtains drawn back from the window, watched her gloomily as she passed through the room gathering up some music that lay scattered on the piano, as though she meant never to touch its ivory keys again. "Ah, me!" she sighed, "she is young to learn the bitter lesson: that those who have a heart must crush out its love before they can go through life in peace! Dolores--it seemed like an atonement to call her so; but would I had not given her the fatal name. God will help her to forget--as He has given me peace." The darkening eyes, straying far out over the waters, seemed for a moment ready to belie the boast of her lips, so restless and uneasy was their light; but the discipline of half a lifetime asserted its power, and she went from the room, calm and self-possessed as ever. Little did she dream of the cause of what she deemed Lola's uncomplaining resignation. The girl had seen her lover, and, unspeakably wretched as he was, she could say no word to comfort him, but held his hand in hers, with all the love her heart contained beaming from her glorious eyes. Only once did he clasp her to his heart in a passionate embrace: she had sealed the promise to be his, with a kiss. They would enter on their new life together at the beginning of the year. They would be wedded to each other on New-Year day--but the priest who received their vows should be Death, and their marriage-bed the bottom of the bay.