Long before Harcourt reached his law-office, he was satisfied that he had blundered foolishly, and done Miss Martell great injustice. Her right to refuse his unwelcome love was perfect, and her manner of doing so, as he understood her, had been most delicate, even in his estimation. At the same time she had never given him the slightest ground for his implied aspersion that in her pure, Christian life she shone down upon him with the cold distance of a "star."

He recalled her words and bearing in Mrs. Byram's conservatory, and the degree in which his unreasonable passion had blinded him grew more apparent.

"Why should I expect her to love me?" he asked himself in bitterness. "It is a hundred-fold more than I deserve, or had a right to hope, that she should put out her hand to save me."

He was on the point of returning twenty times, and asking her pardon for his folly, but that bane of our life,—that hinderance to more good and happiness than perhaps any other one cause,—pride, deterred, and Monday evening passed, an unhappy one to the object of his thoughts as well as to himself.

On Tuesday pride was vanquished, and as soon as his business permitted he repaired to the Martell mansion, eager to ask forgiveness. To his deep disappointment, he learned that Mr. Martell and his daughter had driven up to town, crossed on the ferry-boat, and were paying some visits on the other side of the river.

He now purposed to call again as soon as they returned, but was unexpectedly detained until quite late in the evening. He approached the familiar place that now enshrined, to him, the jewel of the world, in both a humble and an heroic mood. He would not presume again, but in silence live worthily of his love for one so lovely. He would be more than content—yes, grateful—if she would deign to help him climb toward her moral height.

As he stood on the piazza, after ringing the door-bell, he was in greater trepidation than when he had made his first plea in court, and was so intent in trying to frame his thoughts into appropriate language that he did not note for the moment that no one answered. Again he rang, but there was no response. There were lights in the house, and he knocked upon the door quite loudly. A housemaid soon after appeared, with a scared and anxious face.

"Is Miss Martell at home?" he asked, a sudden boding of evil chilling his heart.

"Indade an' she is not. Would to God she was!"

"What do you mean?"

"Faix, an' I'm sure I'm glad ye's come, Misther Harcourt. The coachman is down at the shore, and he'll tell ye all."

Harcourt dashed through the snow and shrubbery, over rocks and down steeps that gave him one or two severe falls, that he might, the nearest way, reach Mr. Martell's boat-house. Here he found the coachman peering out upon the dark waters, and occasionally uttering a hoarse, feeble shout, which could scarcely be heard above the surf that beat with increasing heaviness upon the icy beach.

The man seemed nearly exhausted with cold and anxiety, and was overjoyed at seeing Harcourt; but he told the young man a story which filled him with deepest alarm. It was to this effect:

Mr. and Miss Martell had been delayed in leaving a friend's house on the opposite side of the river until it was too late to reach the boat on which it was their intention to cross. They had been prevailed upon by their hospitable host to send their sleigh up to a later boat, while they remained for an early supper, and then should cross in a boat rowed by an experienced oarsman, who was a tenant on the gentleman's place.

"It was quite a bit after dark when I got back, but Mr. Martell and the young lady hadn't come over yet. I first thought they was goin' to stay all night, and that I should go arter them in the mornin'; but the woman as sews says how she was sittin' at one of the upper winders, and how she sees, just afore night, a light push out from t'other side and come straight across for a long while, and then turn and go down stream. I'm afeard they've caught in the ice."

"But what became of the light?" asked Harcourt, half desperate with fear and anxiety.

"Well, the woman as sews says it went down and down as long as she could see."

A faint scream from t............