He looked very well; very handsome. It seemed to strike them all, after this short absence, though he had no advantages from dress, being in his travelling attire. How could Adeline be blamed for loving him? A hundred inquiries were made after Mrs. St. John. She was quite out of danger, he answered, and progressing towards recovery. "Will you allow me the honour of half-an-hour's interview with you tomorrow morning, sir?" he said, addressing M. de Castella, in a tone which the whole room might hear. "Certainly," returned M. de Castella. But he looked up, as if surprised. "Name your hour." "Ten o'clock," concluded Mr. St. John. And he took his leave. The interview the following morning in Signor de Castella's cabinet lasted an hour. An hour!--and Adeline in suspense all that time. She could not remain for an instant in one place--now upstairs, now down. She was crossing the hall, for about the hundredth time, when the cabinet door opened, and Mr. St. John came out. He seized her hand and took her into the yellow drawing-room. She trembled violently from head to foot, just as she had trembled the night of his departure for England. It was the first moment of their being alone together, and he embraced her tenderly, and held her to his heart. "You have bad news for me!" she said, at length. "We are to be separated!" "We will not be separated, Adeline. Strange! strange!" he continued, as he paced the room, "that people can be so infatuated as to fancy an engagement of form must necessarily imply an engagement of hearts! M. de Castella does not understand--he cannot understand that your happiness is at stake. In short, he laughed at that." "Is he very angry?" "No; but vexed. I have not time now to relate to you all that passed, liable as we are to interruption. I told him that the passion which had arisen between us was not of will--that I had not purposely placed myself in your path to gain your love--that we had been thrown together by circumstances, and thus it had arisen. I pointed out that no blame could by any possibility attach to you, though it might be due to me; for I did not deny that when I saw an attachment was growing up between us, I might have flown before it was irrevocably planted, and did not." "Did you part in anger?" she asked. "On the contrary. M. de Castella is anxious to treat the affair as a jest, and hinted that it might be dropped as such. I do believe he considers it one, for he asked me to dinner." "Frederick! You will surely come?" "I shall come, Adeline, for your sake." "Oh!" she exclaimed, with a shiver, "how will it end?" "My dearest," he said earnestly, "you must be calm. Fear nothing, now I am by you. Rely upon it, you shall be my wife." "Mr. St. John," cried Rose, as they went into the west drawing-room, "you have brought some music for me, a writing-case for Mary Carr, but what have you brought for Adeline?" "Myself," he quietly answered.