proved the signal of their separation.  He referred again to her agonized words, that a union was impossible, that she dared not wed him; it was sin even to love him; that in the tumultuary, yet delicious emotions she had experienced, she had forgotten, utterly forgotten in what it must end—­the agony of desolation for herself, and, if he so loved her, for Stanley also—­and again he conjured her to explain their meaning.  They had been separated, after that fearful interview, by a hasty summons for him to rejoin his camp; and when he returned, she had vanished.  He could not trace either her or the friend with whom she had been staying.  Don Albert had indeed said, his wife had gone to one of the southern cities, and his young guest returned to her father’s home; but where that home was, Don Albert had so effectually evaded, that neither direct questionings nor wary caution could obtain reply.  But he had found her now; they had met once more, and oh, why need they part again?  Why might he not seek her father, and beseech his blessing and consent?

His words were eloquent, his tone impassioned, and hard indeed the struggle they occasioned.  But Marie wavered not in the repetition of the same miserable truth, under the impression of which they had separated before.  She conjured him to leave her, to forget the existence of this hidden valley, for danger threatened her father and herself if it was discovered.  So painful was her evident terror, that Arthur pledged his honor never to reveal it, declaring that to retrace the path by which he had discovered it, was even to himself impossible.  But still he urged her, what was this fatal secret?  Why was it sin to love him?  Was she the betrothed of another? and the large drops starting to the young man’s brow denoted the agony of the question.

“No, Arthur, no,” was the instant rejoinder:  “I never could love, never could be another’s, this trial is hard enough, but it is all I have to bear.  I am not called upon to give my hand to another, while my heart is solely thine.”

“Then wherefore join that harsh word ‘sin,’ with such pure love, my Marie?  Why send me from you wretched and most lonely, when no human power divides us?”

“No human power!—­alas! alas!—­a father’s curse—­an offended God—­these are too awful to encounter, Arthur.  Oh do not try me more; leave me to my fate, called down by my own weakness, dearest Arthur.  If you indeed love me, tempt me not by such fond words; they do but render duty harder.  Oh, wherefore have you loved me!”

But such suffering tone, such broken words, were not likely to check young Stanley’s solicitations.  Again and again he urged her, at least to say what fatal secret so divided them; did he but know it, it might be all removed.  Marie listened to him for several minutes, with averted head and in unbroken silence; and when she did look on him again, he started at her marble paleness and the convulsive quivering of her lips, which for above a minute prevented the utterance of a word.