"It is better that he has gone," he said, but without any surprise; "it could not have been kept up much longer. I hope, for your sake, he may be safe. Flight would have been better a week ago. I could have managed it, but you would not trust me. Did you really think," he continued, rising slowly from his seat, and looking at me with an expression compounded of bitterness, and tenderness, and sadness, "did you really think I did not know you were hiding your lover in my house--that you were dying a thousand deaths in the midst of this careless crowd? Why, child," he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, and looking into my eyes, "I know every expression of this face better than I know my own. I know its flashes of fear, its white mantle of despair, and its crimson glow of love, too well to be deceived. If I had needed confirmation of my suspicions on the morning after Dr. Hugh's murder, that Victor Viennet was the guilty man, I should have had only to have looked in your face. And from that dreadful day to this, I have read there each event as it has come to pass. I have helped you in your lover's cause, though you did not know it. I have worked day and night to mislead his persecutors, to allay the suspicions and blind the eyes of the authorities; and I have nearly succeeded. There is very little danger now, if he is prudent and dexterous in his flight. Do not tremble so; you need not fear for him. By this time he is probably beyond the only part of his journey that was attended with much risk." I burst into tears; it was so hard to hear him say all this, and talk to me as if I had nothing to be miserable about, now that Victor was safe. Ah! this was but the beginning. A life-time lay before me full of such hours as this. "It is a heavy fate, poor child," he said, compassionately. "I would have saved you from it if I could." "You don't know half how heavy!" I sobbed. "If you did, you wouldn't think it a sin for me to pray to die." "Take the harder penance, and submit to live. Death doesn't always come for the asking. God has sent you a terrible trial, but he will help you through it if you will only keep that in mind." "No, no. God did not send it. I have brought it on myself--it is all my own deed! Oh! if you only knew"----