As long as I knew not her story, I might indulge, at least, in dreams of the future. But, now—what hope, what prospect remained? My sole chance of happiness lay in the feeble hope of beguiling away her thoughts from the plan which she meditated; of weaning her, by persuasion, from that austere faith, which I had before hated and now feared, and of—attaching her, perhaps, alone and unlinked as she was in the world, to my own fortunes for ever! In the agitation of these thoughts, I had started from my resting‐place, and continued to pace up and down, under a burning sun, till, exhausted both by thought and feeling, I sunk down, amid its blaze, into a sleep, which, to my fevered brain, seemed a sleep of fire. On awaking, I found the veil of Alethe laid carefully over my brow, while she, herself, sat near me, under the shadow of the sail, looking anxiously at that leaf, which her mother had given her, and apparently employed in comparing its outlines with the course of the river and the forms of the rocky hills by which we passed. She looked pale and troubled, and rose eagerly to meet me, as if she had long and impatiently waited for my waking. Her heart, it was plain, had been disturbed from its security, and was beginning to take alarm at its own feelings. But, though vaguely conscious of the peril to which she was exposed, her reliance, as is usually the case, increased with her danger, and on me, far more than on herself, did she depend for saving her from it. To reach, as soon as possible, her asylum in the desert, was now the urgent object of her entreaties and wishes; and the self‐reproach she expressed at having permitted her thoughts to be diverted, for a single moment, from this sacred purpose, not only revealed the truth, that she had forgotten it, but betrayed even a glimmering consciousness of the cause. Her sleep, she said, had been broken by ill‐omened dreams. Every moment the shade of her mother had stood before her, rebuking her, with mournful looks, for her delay, and pointing, as she had done in death, to the eastern hills. Bursting into tears at this accusing recollection, she hastily placed the leaf, which she had been examining, in my hands, and implored that I would ascertain, without a moment’s delay, what portion of our voyage was still unperformed, and in what space of time we might hope to accomplish it. I had, still less than herself, taken note of either place or distance; and, had we been left to glide on in this dream of happiness, should never have thought of pausing to ask where it would end. But such confidence, I felt, was too sacred to be deceived. Reluctant as I was, naturally, to enter on an inquiry, which might so soon dissipate even my last hope, her wish was sufficient to supersede even the selfishness of love, and on the instant I proceeded to obey her will.