ABOUT two o'clock one morning in the month of September, 1828, the country houses situated on the banks of the Garonne, between Reole and Cadillac were steeped in that profound stillness to which the repose of the city is a stranger; and when, in the words of DELISLE, 'one sees only night and hears only silence.' A single villa standing alone in the middle of a park of moderate extent, seemed to form an exception to the general repose. From a window on the first floor, at the eastern angle of this building, streamed forth a gleam of light so faint that at a short distance it would be necessary to regard it very attentively to be certain of its existence. A lover of adventure, who would take the pains to scale the park-wall, climb the balcony, and then support himself on the outside of this window, might perchance deem himself sufficiently repaid for his trouble by the mysterious picture there displayed to his curiosity. Between two curtains of blue silk the eye might distinguish the interior of a sleeping apartment, furnished with elegance and taste, and dimly lighted by a night-lamp. Upon a bed in a recess of the room, a female in the flower of youth and of surpassing loveliness was lying in a slumber whose feverish agitation betrayed the presence of one of those tenacious emotions, which not even the temporary suspension of thought and sensation can interrupt. Near the bed, watched a man mute and motionless, with forehead pale and furrowed with the traces of old age. With head bent over the pillow, breathless, and apparently attempting to restrain with one hand the throbbings of his heart, he seemed to catch with sinister avidity the half-uttered words which a painful dream apparently forced from the lips of the sleeper. 'His name! she will not pronounce his name!' exclaimed the old man, after a vain effort to distinguish the broken sounds, and casting around him a look of impotent rage. 'Arthur!' murmured the fair sleeper, as if some fatal power had suddenly broken the last seal which still guarded the half-betrayed secret of her dreams. 'Arthur!' repeated the old man, starting as if this name had been a dagger ready to pierce his bosom; 'Arthur d'Aubian! and I refused to give credence to it. Arthur! blind fool that I have been!' With a convulsive gesture he brushed away the moisture which stood upon his livid brow, and leaning over the bed, more hateful to him than a yawning sepulchre, he again put his ear close to the fresh and rosy mouth from whence issued these empoisoning words. 'I can go no farther!' murmured the young female, making an effort to rise; 'thy life is in peril; mine is nothing; but thine--No, I can no more! He has suspicions; he will kill you!'