“I think two more unhappy beings never lived than we were; still, there was some consolation in the mournful sympathy which we felt for each other. Some days, when the morning sunshine came through the window which separated her bed from mine, we would get up a gleam of cheerfulness, and strive to encourage each other, knowing all the time how futile it was. When I attempted to comfort her, she answered me kindly, but was too sorrowful for consolation. The gloom of coming anguish, and probable death, hung over us both. We had no heart for words. “It is terrible here at night. I cannot sleep, with so many strange women breathing heavily around me. The hush of the city chills me through and through. It seems like lying in a graveyard, especially when the slow sob of the river comes up to me through the silence. This other poor girl is often awake in the night. When she does sleep, it is restlessly, and sometimes her moans break into words. “This night, this very night—it seems long as eternity—she began to murmur in her dreams as I lay weary and wakeful. All at once I started up in bed and listened. She had uttered a name,—your name, De Marke, uttered it softly as a dove coos in its nest. “That one word was a revelation to me. Quick as light my thoughts flew back to the past—a thousand proofs, trivial but convincing, crowded upon me. The vague uncertainty that had kept me always so restless, was a miserable conviction now. No, not yet, I would not believe the mutterings of a dream—there should be no uncertainty. “I leaned from my cot and grasped the white arm of the sleeping girl, which had fallen downward over the side of her bed. She awoke with a start, and I saw her blue eyes fixed wildly on my face. “‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘was it the son of George De Marke, a shipping-merchant lately dead, of whom you spoke but now?’ She lifted her white hands and clasped them wildly. “‘Did I speak of him? when? how? Who tells me that I spoke of De Marke?’ she said. “‘In your sleep, a moment since,’ I answered; ‘tell me about him, I must know!’ She looked at me wildly, but did not answer. ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘do you love this man?’ “‘Better than my life!—better than my own soul!’ she answered, lifting her clasped hands to heaven. “‘And he—did he love you?’ “I asked the question faintly, my lips were cold, my heart in an agony of suspense. She turned her eyes upon me—those beautiful blue eyes—full of tears that glittered painfully before my sight. “‘Love me? yes, I am sure he does—sure as I am of my life.’ “I tightened the grip of my hand upon her arm, for agony made me strong, and I was unconscious of the cruelty, till she shrunk away quivering from my touch. “‘Then God help you, and forgive him!’ I said. She did not speak, but cowered down in her cot, with a low moan, as if my words had wounded her to death. At last she said to me timidly, for my wild anguish had frightened her.