“Oh yes, yes; you must write every day,” he replied. “I shall find out some retired spot in Wales, and I shall remain there in utter seclusion till your mind is made easy by hearing no more. In three months you will conclude it was only a forgery?” She shook her head. “I know the writing.” “In six months? In a year, you will—name some time—set some term to my banishment!” “We will write—I am not capable of knowing or understanding what is right in your presence. You must leave me, Algernon, or I think I shall die, now, at your feet!” “And are we to part thus?” She stood like a marble statue, as cold, as pale, as motionless. “Are we to part thus? Impossible!” and he snatched her to his bosom, and imprinted on her lips one kiss of deep, fervent, unalterable love. He tore himself away, and plunging into the carriage, in a few moments was borne far from the scene of all his happiness. When she heard the sound of the wheels, she made a desperate rush to the window, and remained fixed there to listen for their sound, and to fancy she still heard it, long after it was possible to do so. CHAPTER IX. From our own paths, our love’s attesting bowers, I am not gone, In the deep hush of midnight’s whispering hours Thou art not lone! Not lone when by the haunted stream thou weepest, That stream whose tone Murmurs of thoughts the holiest and the deepest We two have known. MRS. HEMANS. He was gone—quite gone—and slowly and wearily she dragged herself back to the sofa, and gave free vent to all the agony which had been eating away her very being. She was thus drowned in tears, when the footman entered the room, upon some pretence of closing the shutters, or of making up the fire. The servants could not but perceive that something unusual was going on, and their curiosity was excited by the mysterious looks of their master and mistress, and by the sudden departure of the former. Ellen, to avoid the inquiring gaze of the footman, hastily retired to her boudoir, whither she had no sooner retreated than her anxious maid peeped in to see if she might want any thing. Pleading a violent head-ache, she bade her say she should not require any dinner, and assured her that nothing but entire quiet could relieve the pain under which she was suffering. The faithful creature would prescribe all the nostrums that ever were invented for head-aches, and poor Ellen thought she never should be allowed to weep in peace. At length she was relieved from the troublesome attentions both of the inquisitive and of the kind-hearted, and was left to her own sad thoughts.