“At the time it was thought as much a piece of idle play as an acted charade. Alas! it is no such thing. Hugh Riversdale, Helen Grahame is your wife. In the sight of God you are married, and may form no other contract. It is true some legal forms were omitted, but that does not absolve you from the consequences of a joke which has become dread earnest. I leave to you the task of communicating with Miss Grahame; but if I do not hear from you on the expiration of a week from the date of your receipt of this note, I shall communicate with Mr. Grahame. I was guilty of the act of joining you in jest--but in the eyes of Heaven it was an act of marriage. Earnest reflection has impressed upon me the imperative necessity of doing my utmost to prevent aught sundering those whom God hath joined._” The letter contained many further expressions of sorrow and penitence, and offered--if Hugh was still attached to Miss Grahame, and anything stood in the way of their re-union--to do his utmost to smoothe it away. “I estimate marriage as a sacrament,” he said, “and hold no divorce valid on earth but death.” The feelings of Hugh Riversdale, on reading this communication, may be imagined. His stay in Malta was brief after this. On his return to England his uncle made him a gentleman--that is to say, in one acceptation of the term; for he invested for him a very large sum of money, and thus presented him with a most handsome income, conveying and securing it to him and to his heirs for ever; because, having heard from him his love-story, he was resolved he should be in a position, when he claimed Helen Grahame, which was equal to her own. Hugh, however, to his distraction, found, on immediate and anxious inquiry, that Helen had quitted her home under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and it was not known whither by any one whom he had questioned. He set a close watch upon her father’s house, and hunted in every direction for her without success, until the eventful night upon which she returned home. He had full faith in the probability of her re-appearance in her father’s house; he had the most sanguine hopes that he should prevail upon her to quit it, and join him, never more to part. He provided a boat and a carriage, with fleet horses, should flight be necessary, and we have seen how he had occasion to use them. He bore Helen’s inanimate form to his own house, and placed her in charge of his mother, while he went in quest of medical assistance. Helen was aroused from her long insensibility to exhibit only raving delirium; a violent attack of brain fever followed, and, when the violence of this had passed, she settled down into a state of low, dull insanity.