"Miss Fanny Euston, will you pardon me for breaking in upon your reveries?" She turned and recognized him, but her smile of recognition was a very mournful one. "I have stopped you to take my leave,--a good deal more in short hand than I meant it should have been. I shall sail for Europe the day after to-morrow." "Yes? Is not that a little sudden?" "More sudden than I wish it were. I am not at all in a travelling humor. I have been too much pressed for time to ride out, as I meant to do, to your father's house." "We are all in town now. My father came from New Orleans yesterday, very ill." "I did not hear of it. I trust not dangerously ill." "He is dying. He cannot live a week." Morton well knew the strength and depth of her attachment to her father. He pressed her hand in silent sympathy. "It grieves me, Fanny," he said, after a moment, "to part from you under such a cloud." "Good by," she replied, returning the friendly pressure. "I wish you with all my heart a pleasant and prosperous journey." Morton turned back, wondering at the sudden dignity of manner which grief had given to the wild and lawless Fanny Euston. CHAPTER XXVII. _Ham_. Thou wouldst not think how ill's all here about my heart, but it is no matter. _Hor_. Nay, good my lord---- _Ham_. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving as would perhaps trouble a woman. _Hor_. If your mind dislike any thing, obey it. _Ham_. Not a whit. We defy augury. Morton's day of departure came. It was a comfortless, savage, gusty morning, an east wind blowing in from the bay. The hour to set sail was near; he should have been on board; but still he lingered with Edith Leslie. The secrecy on which her father insisted made it impossible for her to go with him to the ship. Morton forced himself away; his hand was on the door, but his heart failed him, and he turned back again. On the mind of each there was something more than the pain of a year's separation. A dark foreboding, a cloud of dull and sullen portent, hung over them both. The smooth and bright crusting with which habit and training had iced over the warm nature of Edith Leslie was broken and swept away; and as Morton seized her hands, she disengaged herself, and, throwing herself on his neck, sobbed convulsively. Morton pressed her to his heart, and buried his face in her clustering tresses; then, breaking from her, ran blindly from the house. He repaired to the house of Meredith, who met him at the door. "You've no time to lose. Here's the carriage. Your trunks are all right. Come on." They drove towards the wharf. "I'd give my head to change places with you," said Meredith. "I wish you could." There was so much pain and dejection in his look, that his friend could not fail to observe it. "You don't want to go, then? I have noticed all along that you seemed devilish cool about it."