“Deferring to your better judgment, madam, still, I fear not! I think such trifles would scarcely have raised so dark a thunder-cloud upon Clifton’s brow,” said Frank. “Oh, well! At worst it is but some lover’s quarrel with his most exacting queen, Carolyn!” playfully replied the lady. Frank was not satisfied—he was pained. This most dangerous dark beauty fascinated and frightened him by turns. He had never seen the fiend in her face since that first night, and her witching power had almost erased the remembrance of it from his mind. Indeed, if he had ever recollected it, it was with wonder and remorse that he should have ever read such fearful meaning in a lady’s frown, and he ascribed it to the phantasmagoria of his own fatigued nerves and over-excited brain. But now he felt vaguely anxious, suspicious, foreboding—he scarce knew wherefore. He had no reason to reply to the lady again, for at the instant she finished speaking, the carriages drove into the yard, bringing the company from Hardbargain, and they walked forward to welcome them home. CHAPTER VII. THE SEVERED HEARTS. Alas! how slight a cause may move Dissension between hearts that love— Hearts that the world in vain had tried, And sorrow but more closely tied; That stood the storm when waves were rough, Yet in a sunny hour fell off, Like ships that have gone down at sea, When Heaven was all tranquillity! A something light as air—a look— A word unkind or wrongly taken; Oh, love that tempests never shook, A breath—a touch like this hath shaken.—MOORE.