“There, that will do; let me read it over,” said he, extending his hand for the note.  “Yes, I will sign it now—­then do you add our address.  Send it now, Emily—­send it in time for to-night’s mail.”

“Clary, do you think she will come?” inquired his sister.

“Yes,” replied he, confidently; “I am sure she will if the note reaches her.”  Emily said no more, but sealed and directed the note, which she immediately despatched to the post-office; and on the following day it reached little Birdie.

From the time when the secret of Clarence’s birth had been discovered, until the day she had received his note, she never mentioned his name.  At the demand of her father she produced his letters, miniature, and even the little presents he had given her from time to time, and laid them down before him without a murmur; after this, even when he cursed and denounced him, she only left the room, never uttering a word in his defence.  She moved about like one who had received a stunning blow—­she was dull, cold, apathetic.  She would smile vacantly when her father smoothed her hair or kissed her cheek; but she never laughed, or sang and played, as in days gone by; she would recline for hours on the sofa in her room gazing vacantly in the air, and taking apparently no interest in anything about her.  She bent her head when she walked, complained of coldness about her temples, and kept her hand constantly upon her heart.

Doctors were at last consulted; they pronounced her physically well, and thought that time would restore her wonted animation; but month after month she grew more dull and silent, until her father feared she would become idiotic, and grew hopeless and unhappy about her.  For a week before the receipt of the note from Clarence, she had been particularly apathetic and indifferent, but it seemed to rouse her into life again.  She started up after reading it, and rushed wildly through the hall into her father’s library.

“See here!” exclaimed she, grasping his arm—­“see there—­I knew it!  I’ve felt day after day that it was coming to that!  You separated us, and now he is dying—­dying!” cried she.  “Read it—­read it!”

Her father took the note, and after perusing it laid it on the table, and said coldly, “Well—­”

“Well!” repeated she, with agitation—­“Oh, father, it is not well!  Father!” said she, hurriedly, “you bid me give him up—­told me he was unworthy—­pointed out to me fully and clearly why we could not marry:  I was convinced we could not, for I knew you would never let it be.  Yet I have never ceased to love him.  I cannot control my heart, but I could my voice, and never since that day have I spoken his name.  I gave him up—­not that I would not have gladly married, knowing what he was—­because you desired it—­because I saw either your heart must break or mine.  I let mine go to please you, and have suffered uncomplainingly, and will so suffer until the end; but I must see him once again.  It will be a pleasure to him to see me once again in his dying hour, and I must go.  If you love me,” continued she, pleadingly, as her father made a gesture of dissent, “let us go.  You see he is dying—­begs you from the brink of the grave.  Let me go, only to say good bye to him, and then, perhaps,” concluded she, pressing her hand upon her heart, “I shall be better here.”