That same evening the fugitive couple arrived in the metropolis, and took up their abode in apartments engaged for them by Mr. Riches at a hotel. It was time. Already they were beginning to long for other company than their own; a few days more might make their own companionship intolerable. One quarter of the moon had nearly taught them the vanity of the lover's chimera, that they were all-sufficient for one another. There was so much anxiety about their path, so much gloom around the present, so much dismay in the future, that their spirits drooped, and even love seemed to grow cold in their hearts. Let them beware, for they were united for ever. In the preservation of their mutual regard lay their only chance of peace; should that vanish, there was nothing but misery before them. The day might then come when Mildred would be qualified to receive succour from her mother, on the terms which Esther, in the fierceness of her first indignation, had not scrupled to prescribe. The sense of the fault they had committed lay at the bottom of their discontent. Mildred repented with bitter sorrow her rupture of all filial ties, and exaggerated her sister's account of the distress it had occasioned, thinking sometimes that she might even have broken her mother's heart. She forgot the severity with which she had lately been treated, and remembered only the tenderness which she had not seldom experienced. She often recollected how she had been pressed to her mother's bosom on the night of the fire, and she trembled to dwell upon the affection which one moment had cast away. Randolph read some portion of her thoughts; and he perceived that the maternal sorrow to which he had once looked forward with perverse eagerness, afforded him none of the satisfaction he had expected. It was not so he ought to avenge his own or his father's wrongs. The scheme recoiled upon himself. There was no happiness for him while his bride was unhappy, and nothing but wretchednes for her until she had made her peace at home. And so Randolph saw that his stolen marriage had actually contributed to Esther's triumph. She had now not only his worldly wealth, but himself beneath her foot. He had placed himself in a position where he must either sue for mercy or behold his wife pining away before his eyes. Amidst such gloomy speculations, one bright spot sometimes appeared to his mental vision. "I have thought," his father said, in those well remembered words, "she was not so indifferent to me as she chose to pretend. If it were so, she has avenged me on herself, and has my forgiveness." Would that Randolph had dwelt oftener upon the hope contained in this qualification, and more seldom upon the stern injunction! Would that he had not suffered the early affront to himself to take so firm a hold of him! That he had not fomented his personal quarrel, until now he could see no avenue to reconciliation! That he had listened with more humility to the remonstrances of Polydore Riches!