“Ask me not now, love,” she returned, quickly; “some day you shall be made acquainted with the reason of my flight, and why I have returned only to leave you once more.” “Oh! Helen, it seems so dreadful for you, who were the brightest ornament of our house, to become suddenly”-- “Its blot, its stain!” interrupted Helen, passionately. “No, no, no,” interposed Evangeline, hastily. “I meant not that. Oh! pray, pray, Helen, remain with us now; everything will come bright again. If all the others look cold upon you at first, they will come round to regard you as they did ere you left us, and you know, Helen, that I will ever be fond and loving to you, if you will let me.” Helen folded her to her heart, and kissed her wildly. “It is in vain, Eva,” she presently replied, in a low but firm tone, “it cannot be. If I were to remain, my father would attempt to coerce me into an act which; weak and erring as I have been, I would die rather than consent to perform. Farewell! we shall meet again, Eva.” “May I come to see you, Helen?” she asked, with great earnestness. “I am very sad and lonely at home here, and if I could only come at times to see and speak with you, it would make me so happy.” “I will write to you, darling,” said Helen, hastily; “run back to your room, Eva, or you will be missed, and you will be suspected of aiding my departure. I would spare you a terrifying cross-examination, and the ill-treatment likely to result from it. Besides, dearest, if I remain longer it may prove the source of the greatest unhappiness to me.” This latter argument had its full weight with Evangeline: she embraced her sister with ardent weeping tenderness, and, with many oft-repeated kisses, tore herself away. Helen wept too, and convulsively. She stood motionless until after Evangeline had, with light fleeting step, entered the house, and then she prepared to hastily leave the garden by the servants’ entrance, with the impression that she should never more enter that house which had been her home from childhood. She glided stealthily for a few paces, until she reached an angle of the walk, upon which a shadow from the house fell darkly. As she entered the gloom hastily, she ran into the arms of a man who had been standing silently there, and whom she had not seen until she found herself pressed vigorously to his breast. “My dear Miss Grahame, I have been expecting you, and I must have a few delicious words with you,” whispered the voice of Lester Vane in her ear. “Monster!” she cried, affrightedly; and by a desperate exertion, she broke from him and fled--she knew not where. He followed her swiftly, and caught her as she reached the thicket, in which he had felt convinced, on his first visit, she met a lover, clandestinely. He seized her by both wrists, and held her firmly.