Had she really read them, or had her imagination played her some terrible trick? Feeling as if she were turning to stone, she picked up the paper and compelled herself to go over the horrible sentence again. Yes, it was all true—it was as plain as print could make it. But what was this? A new terror seized her—something that she had not thought of until now, she had been so stunned by the bare fact that her lover was married. “Sir Archibald Sherbrooke _and_ Lord Carrol, of Carrolton!” A mist comes over her eyes; her heart drops like a thing of lead in her bosom. In an instant a suspicion of the truth flashed upon her. Had she done her lover an irreparable wrong? she asked herself, with a feeling of despair. Had she driven him from her, taunting him with treachery and cowardice, and refusing to listen to his defense, when perhaps he had the best in the world to offer her? Oh! if she had but heeded Mr. Rosevelt when he begged her to let him see him and learn the reason of his mysterious conduct. Oh! if she had only answered that advertisement and allowed him to come to her as he had entreated. She had been cruel, unjust, wicked; and now it was too late to atone for it. She felt as if bands of ice were being bound about her heart—as if coals of fire were heaped upon her brain, and branded upon it, in letters which would haunt her till her dying hour, those two names, Sir Archibald Sherbrooke and Lord Carrol, of Carrolton. Familiar as she was with English customs, she could understand readily enough how he had become possessed of them, and it was so strange that she had never thought of it before. In all her suffering upon learning, as she had supposed, that she had been betrayed, she had never endured pain like this; and, with her sight failing, her senses reeling, without sound or warning, she slipped from her chair to the floor, where she lay white and still in a lifeless heap at Jacob Rosevelt’s feet. CHAPTER XL. STELLA’S MENTAL AGONY. “Bless my soul! what does this mean?” Jacob Rosevelt cried, as, looking up from his own letters, in which he had been deeply absorbed, he saw the beautiful girl lying so white and still at his feet. He rushed to the bell and rang it violently, then back again to Star, whom he lifted tenderly in his arms and laid her upon a sofa, where he began chafing her cold hands vigorously. Mrs. Blunt soon made her appearance in answer to her master’s summons, and looked as alarmed as himself to find the girl she loved so devotedly in such a critical state. But Star’s insensibility did not last long. All too soon she awoke to a consciousness of this new misery. “What is the matter?” she asked, as, opening her eyes, she found her fond friends bending anxiously over her. “You had a fainting turn, dear; but you are better now,” Mrs. Blunt returned, holding a glass of wine to her lips.