Oh Lord, thou hast enlarged the grief
      Of this poor stricken heart,
    That only finds in tears relief,
      Which all unbidden start: 
    Long have I borne the cruel scorn
      Of one I could not love nor hate;
    My soul, with secret anguish torn,
      Yields unresisting to its fate—­S.M.

Mark Hurdlestone’s triumph was complete; his revenge fully gratified, when he led his beautiful bride from the altar to the carriage, which was in readiness to convey her to her future home.  She was his, and Algernon might return as soon as he pleased.  Elinor Wildegrave was beyond his reach.  She could never be his wife.

Tranquil, but not happy, Elinor viewed the change in her circumstances as an intervention of Providence to save her from a life of poverty and suffering; and she fancied that, if she did not love her benefactor, feelings of gratitude and a sense of duty would always prevent him from becoming to her an object of dislike or indifference.

How little had she studied human nature; how ignorant was she of the mysterious movements of the human heart; and when, after much painful experience, she acquired the fatal knowledge, how bitter were the effects it produced upon her own.

When once his victim was in his toils, Mr. Hurdlestone did not attempt to conceal from her his real disposition.

He laughed at her credulity in believing that love alone had actuated him in making her his wife.  He related to her, with terrible fidelity, the scene he had witnessed between her and Algernon in the garden, and the agonies of jealousy that he endured when he discovered that she loved another; and he repulsed with cold and sarcastic neglect every attempt made by Elinor to render their union more tolerable, and his home more comfortable.

To Elinor his conduct was perfectly unaccountable.  She could not believe that he did not love her, and she was not a little mortified at what she considered his unnatural coldness and neglect.

“Marcus,” she said to him one evening, as she sat on a cushion at his feet, after making many vain attempts to attract his notice, or win from him one kind look or word, “you did not always treat me with indifference; there was a time when I thought you loved me.”

“There was a time, madam, when I adored you!—­when I would have given all I possessed in the world to obtain from you one smile.”

“Then why this coldness?  What have I done to merit your dislike?”

“You loved Algernon.  You love him still.  Aye, that blush!  Your face tells no falsehood.  You cannot conceal it from me.”

“I do not deny my love.  But he is dead.  Why should you be jealous of the dead?”

Mark smiled a grim bitter smile.  “But if he were alive?”

“Ah!” and she pressed her small white hand tightly on her heart.  “But then, Marcus, I should not be your wife.  It would no longer be my duty to love another.”