She looked at the post-marks. There were upon it, in various coloured inks, Gratz, Vienna, Dresden, Magdeburg, Hamburgh. No Verdun post-mark! How strange! Wonder, terror, conquered all other feelings—she tore open the seal—it was indeed his own hand-writing!—the date, Gratz, June 1808—What could it mean? She looked at the end—it was his own, very own name!—it was addressed to her! It began, “My beloved wife, my own Ellen!” She could read no more; the letter dropped from her hand, and she fainted on the floor. She was in this state, when Mr. Hamilton, alarmed by her paleness at breakfast, sought her in her boudoir. He raised her from the ground, and calling her maid, soon succeeded in restoring her to herself—To herself? No! She could never again be what she had been! She gazed around with wild and haggard eyes; then motioning the maid to leave the room, and watching with agonized fear till the double doors were both closed, she screamed rather than said,— “He is alive! he is alive! I am not your wife, Algernon! I am not yours!” and she threw herself into his arms, she clung to him, she clasped her arms around his neck, with desperate energy, as if she thought thus to rivet the tie she felt was severed. “Ellen! dearest Ellen! my own gentle Ellen, are you raving? You must be ill! What is the matter? You really frighten me!” he added, attempting to smile. “Look there, Algernon! there it lies! I have only read the first line, and would to heaven I had died! Oh! if I could but die now, with my head on your bosom,—your arms around me,—my eyes fixed on yours! Dearest, dearest Algernon! I love you better than any thing else in the whole world—better, ten thousand times better than myself! Words cannot express the thousandth part of the agonizing love I feel for you! and it is all a crime! Look there! read that!” and she pressed her hands against her eyeballs, as if to exclude light and consciousness. This burst of passion was so unlike his retiring Ellen, whose affection, though evinced by every action of her life, implied by all she said, had still seemed frightened back into her heart, if in any moment of tenderness she was called upon to couch it into actual language, that Mr. Hamilton was lost in astonishment! In dread and wonder he took the letter in his hand—he saw the beginning—he looked at the date—he staggered to a chair, and exclaiming, “Merciful Heaven!” he too remained stupified, unable to utter, and scarcely to think, or to comprehend the extent of the misfortune which had befallen them. At length reason in some measure resumed its sway, and he suggested, “May it not be a forgery? Are you sure it is his hand?” A momentary light flashed athwart her mind; she seized the paper, and they sat down together to the perusal of that letter, on which their fates so completely hung! CHAPTER VII. Son ilusion mis dichas Son realidad mis penas.