When I was alone, my desolation, my wretchedness, my solitude burst upon me in an agony--he had gone away--he had granted my petition--I was alone! I stood for a long time quite silent, where he had left me, then I went back to my chair; I fancied the very foundations of the earth were breaking up. I had no longer any one to trust to; every one had deceived me, every creature I loved or cared for was in the conspiracy--even my father's suspicions must have come to certainty before I left him. Yet nobody had warned me--oh! it was cruel! cruel! for thus it came about that I had no one to go to in my distress, no one to seek refuge with, that my impulse was to turn away from all my friends, to seek a dreary shelter in this loneliness, which struck to my heart to-night, with such a terrible pang. What was I to do? I could not think of that; my mind went back and back again to what was past. I began to follow out the evidences, the certainties which made it clear to Alice, and to my father, and which ought to have made it clear to me. I had no wish to go back to them. I was indifferent to everything; I only felt that in a moment a bitter antagonism had sprung up between him and me; that, according to our love, would be our enmity and opposition, and that even in our variance and strife, and with this unforgiven wrong between us, we were bound to each other for ever. All this night, when I thought to have been so happy, I sat alone in that chair. At last, when it grew late, and the fire burned low, and I felt the chill of the night, my fatigue overpowered me, and I fell asleep. My dreams were of vague distress and tribulation, misfortune and misery, which I could not comprehend; but when I awoke, I found myself laid on the bed, carefully wrapped up, though still dressed, and the gray of dawn coming in through the windows. I could not recollect myself for the moment, nor how I had come to be here; but when I lifted my head, I saw him seated where I had seated myself last night, bending over a bright fire, with his arm supporting his head. When he heard me stir, he looked up; he had not been sleeping to-night, although I had, and then I recollected all that had passed, and that it was he who must have lifted me here, and covered me so carefully. His face was pale now, and his eyes dark and heavy; he seemed almost as listless and indifferent as I was--for though he looked up, he made no advance to me.