At length Helen was quite alone. The slight hum of the gently-moving trees in the garden was broken only by the monotonous ticking of the time-piece over the fireplace. An hour passed, and not a sound broke the intense stillness which reigned throughout the house. Suddenly Helen sat straight up in the bed. She stretched her arms out, and murmured, in accents of the keenest misery-- “Oh! Hugh, Hugh--pardon and pity me! If you are dead, come to me in the spirit; let your sad eyes once more turn on mine. I will not tremble, nor faint, nor be appalled. Come to me--bear me with you; for oh! it is dreadful to be here alone--alone, Hugh! Oh! you know not how lone I am--so utterly lonely. No, no; oh, mercy Heaven! not _alone_--not alone--no more alone!” With a low wail, more like a cry of horror than, the sob of anguish, she sank shivering down, and buried her head beneath the bed-clothes. Once more she raised herself, and parted her long black hair from her tearful eyes, dim with long weeping. “Are you dead, Hugh?” she moaned; “it is happiness for you, if you are. I may not die--I dare not die; I must live--live for, for--oh--I shall go frantic! Live? Live where?--_where?_--where?” She clasped her hands in despair. “Here I cannot stay. Here? No; I must out into the world. Oh! where, to hide my misery and my shame from all--the pitying and the pitiless? Oh, Hugh! that I had fled to you. If I had but listened to the pleadings of my heart, I had not fallen before the whisperings of my pride!” And thus the night through did she start up and murmur in moaning accents, or hide herself beneath the bed-covering, sobbing and wailing in the very wildest grief. The pale gray dawn began to show through the transparent blind, when sleep stole over the exhausted girl, and it was mid-day ere she awoke, strengthened, though not refreshed, by her long slumber--awoke, as Mrs. Truebody had told her, to be face to face with her miserable situation. She did not shrink from it. The nurse kept her promise, and suffered no one to enter the chamber but herself, and Helen had all the quiet she could hope for. She lay motionless the remainder of the day. The nurse could, however, see that her mind was working with ceaseless activity. Occasionally she would perceive her dark eyes, shining with an unnatural brilliancy, turned upon herself, and she knew that Helen was taking into her calculations her aid or her silence. She did not try to induce her to speak, especially as she saw that she had a disinclination to do so. She believed it to be better for her to think. A steady reflection upon the failings of our nature tends to promote an endeavour to remedy them. Under such an impression, she did not care to make Helen talk.