She dropped his hand as she concluded, and with eyes still fixed upon him, she half turned round, as if about to leave the room.  But the crisis of her emotions was reached.  She sickened with the effort.  Her limbs grew too weak to sustain her; a sudden faintness overspread all her faculties—­her eyes closed—­she gasped hysterically, and tottering forward, she sank unconscious into the arms of Ralph, which were barely stretched out in time to save her from falling to the floor.  He bore her to the sofa, and laid her down silently upon it.

He was struck suddenly with the truth to which he had hitherto shown himself so blind.  He would have been the blindest and most obtuse of mortals, did he now fail to see.  That last speech, that last look, and the fearful paroxysm which followed it, had revealed the poor girl’s secret.  Its discovery overwhelmed him, at once with the consciousness of his previous and prolonged dullness—­which was surely mortifying—­as with the more painful consciousness of the evil which he had unwittingly occasioned.  But the present situation of the gentle victim called for immediate attention; and, hastily darting out to another apartment, he summoned Mrs. Munro to the succor of her niece.

“What is the matter, Mr. Colleton?”

“She faints,” answered the other hoarsely, as he hurried the widow into the chamber.

“Bless my soul, what can be the matter!”

The wondering of the hostess was not permitted to consume her time and make her neglectful; Colleton did not suffer this.  He hurried her with the restoratives, and saw them applied, and waiting only till he could be sure of the recovery of the patient, he hurried away, without giving the aunt any opportunity to examine him in respect to the cause of Lucy’s illness.

Greatly excited, and painfully so, Ralph hastened at once to the lodgings of Edith.  She was luckily alone.  She cried out, as he entered—­

“Well, Ralph, she will come with us?”

“No!”

“No!—­and why not, Ralph!  I must go and see her.”

“She will not see you, Edith.”

“Not see me!”

“No!  She positively declines to see you.”

“Why, Ralph, that is very strange.  What can it mean?”

“Mean, Edith, it means that I am very unfortunate.  I have been a blind fool if nothing worse.”

“Why, what can you mean, Ralph.  What is this new mystery?  This is, surely, a place of more marvels than—­”

“Hear me, Edith, my love, and tell me what you think.  I am bewildered, mortified, confounded.”

He proceeded, as well as he could, to relate what had occurred; to give, not only the words, but to describe the manner of Lucy—­so much of it had been expressed in this way—­and he concluded, with a warm suffusion of his cheeks, to mention the self-flattering conclusion to which he had come:—­