That night he disappeared from the island, and his absence excited little remark and less regret. Of his history scarcely any thing was known; but the mystery with which he chose to envelope his early days, his unbounded prodigality of wealth, and the recklessness of his character, gave rise to a strong suspicion, that his life had been one of desperate and unlawful courses. And who was she against whom that fearful malediction had been uttered? A gentle spiritual being, unfit for the stormy waves on which she had been cast, destined to struggle with difficulty against them, and perhaps, ere long, to float away on the wilderness of waters, a withered and a broken thing. Surrounded with all that wealth could bring, she had grown up, shadowed from the gaze of the world, beautiful and accomplished in person, but still more lovely, if possible, in her intellectual being. To her the literature of the present and the past were unfolded, and she drank deeply of all that is high or impassioned therein. But most she loved to dwell upon the records of her country, and her young blood would thrill as she read of the ancient glory of her people, of their triumphs in arts and arms, of their bards, and warriors, and sages, and she wept when she beheld the degeneracy of their descendants. The beautiful in nature “haunted her like a passion.” She loved the Egean and its isles and the blue sky above them, because they were beautiful themselves, but still more because antiquity had hallowed them. And she was wont to steal away from her companions, and in some shady nook made pleasant by the dashing of a mountain rivulet, to read the stories of the ‘olden time,’ till consciousness stole from her and she lived and moved an actor in the scene. On one thus constituted, the first tidings of the revolt struck like an electric shock. The day-dream of her existence seemed to be on the eve of its accomplishment. Already, in imagination, she saw the chains falling from her nation, and Greece, with her bright coronet of isles, smiling in her recovered independence and happiness. She saw the ruined temples and altars reconstructed, and the statues of the renowned of old, restored to their long deserted niches. She lamented that she too might not grasp the lance and wield the sword. But all the interest of an actual combatant was hers. Her soul was with Niketas, among the passes of the Morea, with Miaulis and Canaris in their desperate engagements by sea, and her prayers were daily with God, that he would crown their efforts with success. She mingled no longer in the song or dance, she was no longer seen in the masque or revel of the festival--a high and holy enthusiasm filled her soul, and “The boon that nature gave her at her birth, Her own original gaiety of heart” was gone. As a mother watches with intense solicitude, the varying pulses of a dying child, so did Zara watch the rising and sinking fortunes of the cause to which she had bound her happiness forever.